How Solar Screen reduced their 180-day past due invoices by 87% with Upflow
Nicolas de Ridder
CEO @ Solar Screen
-15%
Overdue payments
-87%
Time spent collecting
Business
Self-adhesive film distributor
Invoices per month
1500+
Headcount
50+
Tools
Netsuite
Key takeaways
- 15% reduction in DSO within 4 weeks
- 87% reduction in 180-day past due invoices within 2 months
Company
Founded in 1984, Solar Screen sells self-adhesive film for windows and furniture to thousands of businesses across Europe. Those businesses range from car manufacturers to retail film installers and generate more than 20 thousand invoices annually. Recently, the team of 50 was joined by Nicolas de Ridder as CEO who led the company's digital transformation.
Challenges
The main problem that the finance team had was a lack of visibility. It took too much effort to get a clear overview of the company's ARs, so it was rarely done. This resulted in difficulties when performing collections because the data was never up to date and no one wanted to send reminders for already paid invoices. Additionally, as their customers are spread across Europe, collection emails needed to be sent in the local language by the regional managers. Ultimately, these inefficiencies resulted in many customers not paying on time and consequently, Solar Screen taking on customer debt.
Before Upflow, we were in the stone age.
Solution
Once the integration was completed, the team was able to follow their customer balances, DSO and ageing reports in real time. They used the customer, account manager and country breakdowns to better manage their cash position and send the appropriate reminders.
They also created 10 workflows to adapt their collections to their different customer types: Italian, English, German, Spanish, SMBs, large or risky accounts were all modelled correctly. And when calls and emails are not sufficient, formal notices were sent for the worst debtors.
In the weeks following the integration, their DSO decreased by 10 days, and they reduced their bad debt rate from 8% to less than 1% of their turnover.
Our customers are now much more responsive and always know what they need to pay.
Key takeaways
- 15% reduction in DSO within 4 weeks
- 87% reduction in 180-day past due invoices within 2 months