The Challenge
Louisiana CAT offers their diverse base of 31,000+ customers new, used and rental Caterpillar equipment from multiple locations across the state of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. They have been in business for more than 80 years and offer equipment for any type of construction project to maximize productivity.
They have been working diligently over the past few years to optimize their entire order-to-cash process and keep up with customer needs. But on a daily basis, they have more than 3,200 customers with an open balance, and they still relied on Excel spreadsheets to manually track their collections work. This was a highly manual process that required a lot of back and forth between their enterprise resource planning system (ERP), CODA and Billtrust Invoicing. Additionally, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, their collections team downsized by 70%, delivering a new obstacle to test their team’s efficiency.
The Solution
Louisiana CAT started with Billtrust Cash Application to automate matching customer payments and invoices in 2016. They expanded with other Billtrust solutions for digital invoicing, payments and adopted Billtrust Digital Lockbox to support the acceptance of emailed card payments. At the beginning of 2020, they implemented Billtrust Collections to automate customer outreach, encourage more timely payments and better manage customer relationships. When the pandemic hit, Louisiana CAT’s team was able to maintain productivity levels while efficiently preventing receivables from aging substantially.
“The automation that Billtrust Collections provides has allowed my team of three collectors to stay organized and perform like a team twice its size, which has been instrumental.”
Blair Curole
Collections Manager, Louisiana CAT
The Results
Billtrust solutions enabled Louisiana CAT to achieve a 75% match rate for Digital Lockbox payments, and 71% of their customers receive invoices electronically. Since implementing Billtrust Collections, they’ve created a consistent customer experience by eliminating individual customer collections emails and now have full transparency on account details and status. With automated reminders, they are seeing a steady improvement of their current receivables month-over-month, meaning customers are paying on time more often. Through the use of multiple automated Billtrust solutions, Louisiana CAT has been able to effectively maintain cash flow and business operations during the many challenges introduced during the pandemic. This included depending on a smaller collections team all working remotely.
