ERP: NetSuite
CUSTOMER SINCE: 2020
INDUSTRY: Healthcare
CorneaGen is a mission-driven company committed to transforming how corneal surgeons treat and care for the cornea. Based in Seattle, the organization conducts business in every continent, except Antarctica, and is focused on innovating the next generation of cornea care, from new medical devices and biologics to therapeutics and interventions.
“Quadient AR has been a game changer for CorneaGen. When the global crisis struck, we faced significant financial challenges. Quadient AR enabled us to not only address these challenges, but also introduce more effective ways of working, which has led to remarkable cash flow improvements and an enhanced customer experience.”
CHALLENGE
When the global crisis hit, CorneaGen faced a monumental challenge. The company’s days sales outstanding (DSO) was averaging 73-78 days and invoices older than 150 days represented $1.5 million of revenue. This situation needed to improve quickly, or the organization would risk facing serious cash flow problems.
The AR team struggled with significant inefficiencies caused by poor AR practices. When invoicing, old credit notes were applied to outstanding invoices. This meant that when a customer took a credit note, CorneaGen’s team had to spend time reconciling information in the invoice history. This stalled the process and took time away from revenue-generating activities.
Financial reporting was also cumbersome. Each time an account had a specific condition, this was attached as a comment in the reporting, rather than as a reportable, actionable field. This meant that the team had to filter through extensive notes every time they contacted a customer, to ensure that important information was not overlooked.
Manual processes exacerbated these challenges. Billing 150 invoices a day without automation was unmanageable and collections were also hard to execute effectively. As unpaid invoices stacked up, the team could not afford to spend time tailoring their follow up approach for customers and this meant they had no way to control the effectiveness of their collections.
Remote working introduced further complications. It became more difficult to contact customers and the company did not have a robust digital payment process. This delayed customer payments further and created PCI compliance issues as customers had to share payment details over email.
SOLUTION
Quadient AR seamlessly integrated with CorneaGen’s NetSuite ERP to unlock the company’s financial data. The team immediately benefitted from having data organized and presented on centralized, cloud-based dashboards. Customization capabilities enabled the team to create reportable fields for data, which eliminated the time previously spent scrolling through endless customer information.
“Quadient AR provided immediate value. Being able to instantly identify outstanding invoices and follow up with customers armed with accurate, real-time information helped quickly reduce our past due invoices.”
Improved visibility into data has instilled better credit note practices. With all information accessible and easy to analyze, reconciliations have become simpler, and the team has what they need to make informed decisions. Intelligent workflows are saving CorneaGen time. The company’s billing workflow has a fork in it, with invoices being sent to AP teams if they have a PO and purchasing teams if they do not. Quadient AR has automated this process, which means no time is wasted reviewing invoices. Automated capabilities have accelerated collections, enabling CorneaGen to manage their portfolio more effectively and ensure that all customers are contacted in a timely manner.
“Communications are customized and set on a cadence that works for the customer. This means we can maintain our tailored collection workflows and ensure our customers are looked after and incentivized to pay on time.”
Quadient AR’s self-service capabilities have helped CorneaGen adapt to a world of remote working. All customers are now able to access account details, make payments and submit requests through an online portal - on their own time. They do not have to wait to be contacted and they no longer need to share credit card information via email. Internally, departments are working more effectively together. Prior to using Quadient AR, the finance team rarely met with sales or distribution to discuss challenges. However, now that all teams have access to Quadient AR, they spend time together each week to talk through results and identify areas where they can collaborate to improve performance.
RESULTS
Quadient AR helped CorneaGen regain control, by moving away from legacy processes and welcoming in a new era of intelligent AR. This has driven significant working capital benefits and helped ensure business continuity at a very challenging time.
- Billing time reduced from 20 hours a week to 2.5 hours. This represents an >87% efficiency increase.
- Days sales outstanding (DSO) reduced by ≈50%, decreasing from 78 to 38.
- Value of invoices in the 150 days aging bucket reduced from $1.5M to $62K.
- Past due invoices reduced from $5.5M to $2.1M, which represents a 60% decrease.
- Write offs due to customer non-response have decreased by 70% from FY21 Q1 to Q2.
- Customer experience has improved as a result of self-service capabilities and the team’s improved collections approach.
