Case Study
Wholesale Outlet Saves Roughly 25 Hours a Week on Accounts Receivable with Dill
Wholesale Outlet’s controller estimates that Dill saves their team roughly 25 hours a week by automating past due reminders, online payments, and credit applications.
The Challenge
Wholesale Outlet, a Sacramento HVAC distributor and sheet metal manufacturer with more than 1,000 customers, did much of its accounts receivable work manually. Becca Marquis, the company’s controller, wrote past due emails to customers one at a time, and she said she “literally would spend an entire Wednesday doing past dues.” Most customers paid by check, which made applying payments harder, and credit applications took about a week.
Customers who wanted to pay by card filled out a credit card authorization form, and Wholesale Outlet absorbed the credit card fees on those payments.
The Solution
Wholesale Outlet now relies on Dill for the routine work of getting paid. Past due reminders go out on their own as invoices age, so Becca no longer writes them one at a time. Instead, customers log in to Dill’s online payment portal, choose their invoices, and pay by card or ACH. Each payment posts to Wholesale Outlet’s Advantive Distribution One ERP without anyone keying it in. Credit applications come in online, and when a customer enters pre-lien information, Dill sends the certified letters. Dill also gives Wholesale Outlet the option to pass credit card fees to customers. Dill’s team handled the rollout, including the announcement to customers and their questions.
The Results
Saved the accounting team roughly 25 hours a week across accounts receivable
Few accounts now run more than 30 days past due
Saved about $7,500 to $8,000 in credit card fees this fiscal year by passing them to some customers
Cut credit application processing from about a week to about 12 hours
Reduced payment posting from 1 to 2 hours a day to a weekly double-check
Collected $2.8 million through Dill this year, with 103 accounts receivable customers paying through the portal
“Dill has really helped simplify our day-to-day processes. We’re spending less time on manual tasks, and it’s made things easier to manage overall. When you’re juggling a lot of different responsibilities, having a system that’s easy to use and saves time makes a big difference.”
Becca Marquis
Controller, Wholesale Outlet
Automated Past Due Reminders Replace One-by-One Emails
Past dues used to take up an entire Wednesday each week. Now an invoice that reaches a set number of days late triggers its own reminder, with a different message at each stage and a notice at the end that the account is approaching collections. Wholesale Outlet still reviews past dues but no longer sends each email by hand.
Few of Wholesale Outlet’s accounts now run more than 30 days past due, which supports its cash flow.
Passing Credit Card Fees to Customers Saves Wholesale Outlet About $8,000
Wholesale Outlet used to absorb the credit card fees on customer payments, including on large balances paid with travel cards. Customers “get all the points for it,” Becca says, and “we’d eat the merchant fees because those cards come with higher merchant fees.” Dill gave it the option to pass those fees on to customers, and it now does so for some of them. Passing those fees on has saved Wholesale Outlet about $7,500 to $8,000 this fiscal year.
Customers Pay Online Whenever They Want
Becca says customers can now “pay however they want, whenever they want.” They see their invoices in the portal, pay by card or ACH without calling the office, and set up recurring payments. Because customers pick the invoices to pay, Dill pushes each payment through and applies it, which, in Becca’s words, “takes so much time off” her accounting clerk.
Customers asked for card payments and a way to see their own invoices. Becca calls the platform “easy to navigate,” and getting customers set up was “just really easy.”
Credit Applications Take About 12 Hours Instead of a Week
Before Dill, many credit applicants skipped the step of sending statements from other vendors. Becca would ask whether they had them, hear that they couldn’t find any, and then collect references from those vendors instead. Through Dill, the application requires the statements before a customer can continue, so applications now reach Becca complete, with the vendor statements already attached. Becca can now process a credit application in about 12 hours after she receives it, where she used to tell people to expect a week. She can also see where an applicant has started and stopped. Becca says taking credit applications “from taking a week to taking hours is awesome.”
Wholesale Outlet is an HVAC distributor and sheet metal manufacturer in Sacramento, California, with a second location in Stockton, and a member of BLUE HAWK. It has been in business since 1986 and has more than 1,000 customers.
Firm Type
HVAC Distributor and Sheet Metal Manufacturer
Primary Industry
HVAC
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