‘With CreditDevice, we save a lot of time and labour costs and our credit management is much more efficient’
Tom Bravenboer | Credit Controller | Harvest House Carlo Habraken | Interim Business Controller | Harvest House
Harvest House is an international cooperative of growers from the Netherlands, Tunisia, Morocco and Portugal. With an area of 1100 hectares, Harvest House is now the largest growers’ association in the field of ‘fruiting vegetables’. Its member growers grow high-quality peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers in an innovative and sustainable way.
Tom Bravenboer started as Credit Controller at Harvest House in June 2020. As a true Westlander, the AGF (potatoes, vegetables and fruit) industry appeals greatly to Tom. When he arrived, the company was busy looking for a solution to improve its credit management processes. Work within the accounts receivable department could and should be more efficient. Interim Business Controller Carlo Habraken spearheaded this project. He mapped out the execution of credit management: where the inefficiencies were and how software could support this process.
Convincing reasons
”In the search for a solution, I came across CreditDevice through the back door,” Carlo says. ”We looked at three different parties.With an eye on a number of plus points, we chose CreditDevice. Firstly, the Central Dossier that gives you insight into a group of debtors across administrations. Secondly, the mail integration. This allows us to send and receive emails directly from the application. Besides the click and trust, the most important reason to eventually choose CreditDevice was the PolicyManager. Because of the direct link with Atradius and because we can enter Atradius with a single sign-on, we no longer have to switch between applications.”
Big steps
In January 2021, Harvest House began using Credit Management software, credit information and Policy Manager. Since then, great strides have been made. The number of FTEs has been reduced from 5 to 3, allowing them to realize savings in labor costs. Tom: “When I started at Harvest House in 2020, the company was working with an ERP system for order processing and invoicing. Because that system didn’t send notifications when an invoice was past due, you constantly had to figure out for yourself when an invoice was past due and had to manually perform actions for each customer. As a result, it was easy to overlook something. A lot less efficient than how we work now.”
Huge time savings
Tom is pleased that the manning cycle in CreditDevice’s software provides a lot of overview and peace of mind:You can now see at a glance which debtors areoverdue and whether they will receive a first or a second reminder or reminder. You then tick ‘all’ in the software and easily and quickly send all invoices at once. Where previously we had to perform an action per customer, now only a few presses of a button are enough. This saves an enormous amount of time and we are much closer to the ball. Whether it’s 150 or 300 customers, it no longer matters. Without specialized software, it felt like you were always behind the times. You got the work done, but not in the time you had before. Now we have earlier time to pick up disputes, for example.”
For Carlo, the biggest gain is that the department has become much more efficient. “By automating processes, we can now do the same work with fewer people.”
More customer-oriented dunning
This more efficient way of working with fewer people is due in part to the well-designed workflows.Harvest House works with six different workflows, aimed at different customer types. With large customers, for example, it is mainly important to create insight so that you immediately see when something is wrong with an invoice.Small customers, on the other hand, are primarily approached personally. While the workflow of companies outside the EU is much tighter and with a harsher tone.The great thing, according to Carlo, is that you can easily convert a workflow if you want to remind a debtor in a different way.”Before, you only had one flavor and you sent the same letter to everyone by default. Now we have everything much better mapped out and we can send more customer-oriented reminders.”
Everything central
Tom is pleased with the insight and overview provided by CreditDevice’s products. “With CreditDevice, we now have a central point where everything can be found.Where before we had to switch between two or three different applications, now everything is in one place.The link with Exact and the two daily imports and exports, ensure that we are always up-to-date.The link with Atradius means a live update when a limit is withdrawn or increased.These are further advantages and also a huge improvement over the process we had before.”
Tom is also very pleased with PolisManager: ”Like the credit management software, the module ensures efficiency. It makes quite a difference whether you work with an ERP system and the portal of Atradius, or with one software package in which you can search, request and cancel everything.It also saves an enormous amount of risk and time and provides a piece of assurance that you can no longer overlook anything”.
Even more efficiency
Mail integration, as Carlo explained, was one of the reasons for choosing CreditDevice.Tom can’t wait for the functionality to be implemented. “Then we can centralize even more. We will soon be able to incorporate information and responses from customers, as well as from our salespeople, directly into the accounts receivable file.This is definitely going to provide a lot more efficiency”.
Open and smooth
Both men are very satisfied with the cooperation with CreditDevice.Tom: “It’s great that you can go to the service desk with all your questions.Questions are dealt with quickly and if it takes a little longer, there is a good reason for it. But communication is always open and smooth.”Carlo indicates that personal contact is also important: “We are ‘on a first name basis’ with your Credit Management Specialist Noor van der Plas. That is very pleasant, we call or email often and always get a quick response as well.”
