True Alliance Customer Story

CHALLENGES

Established in 1982, True Alliance is one of the largest retailers, distributors, licensees and Shared Services provider of premium accessories, fashion, sports, and outdoor brands on the Australia and New Zealand markets. The privately-owned company is headquartered in Sydney, with offices and showrooms in all other major cities in the region – including Melbourne, Brisbane and Auckland.

Like many paper-based accounts receivable (AR) departments, True Alliances’ processes lacked the transparency into the status of resolved accounts and pending transactions. Manually addressing remittances for over 1,000 clients resulted in a substantial month-end workload. Despite having SAP®, the company was not able to unlock its efficiency, as ERPs are not really meant to be customer-focused. True Alliance needed to find a solution that would connect with SAP while also providing efficient collections processes and easy access to customer information.

“The extensive exchange of messages with small customers consumed a significant amount of time, which we would have preferred to allocate towards managing and pursuing bigger clients,” said Mr. Noel David, General Manager, Finance and Administration at True Alliance. Additionally, interactions with customers were not centrally stored, but instead resided within email inboxes.

The goal was to find solutions capable of automating the company’s collections and cash allocation processes and ensuring with a first-class self-service experience when dealing with the company. This also meant saying farewell to manual tasks.

SOLUTION

After carefully evaluating multiple options, True Alliance ultimately chose Esker Collections Management and Esker Cash Application for the efficiency, visibility, and scalability they provide. Interactions with customers such as emails and responses are now recorded within the AI-driven solutions. Additionally, Esker aggregates all information and documents related to the customers, such as invoices, payments, remittance advices and credit view on the situation of each customer.

Esker Collections Management provides the visibility needed to manage True Alliance’s receivables — including an online self-service portal that offers customers a convenient way to retrieve statements, access information, self-checkout and more.

The team can now focus on strategic assignments, rather than manually reconciling and settling a large number of outstanding customer invoices."
Noel David | General Manager, Finance and Administration, True Alliance

Esker Cash Application matches incoming payments to outstanding invoices, which reduces the need for manual intervention and speeds up the process. “Prior to automation, we were constantly inquiring with the team about payment allocations – and ticking off paper statements. We are no longer doing that,” remarked David. Esker’s AI-powered first-time data recognition engine extracts payment information using machine-learning technology to improve the allocation rate.

“Esker has been a huge success for True Alliance! We have seen a significant workload reduction with the automation of allocations,” said Elena Likhorovitch, Credit Manager at True Alliance. “I can’t imagine going back to the manual process where it could take a whole day to do certain customer allocations.”

For David and the AR team, one of the favorite features of Esker Collections Management is the real-time task lists. By automatically delivering all reminders and reports and prioritizing collections tasks according to pre-set rules and customer segmentation, the solution enables the AR team to focus on what really matters as well as getting cash back in faster.

“Our partnership with Esker’s teams has been collaborative and transparent,” said David. “I greatly appreciate Esker’s commitment to engaging in thorough conversations regarding improvements and the customization of workflows.”

A remittance that would take 3 to 4 hours to clear due to complexity now takes 15 minutes or less, thanks to Esker.
Noel David | General Manager, Finance and Administration, True Alliance

RESULTS

Being a company that partners with numerous reputable brands, it is crucial for True Alliance to establish a best-in-class environment that demonstrates the company’s commitment to investing in cutting-edge technology and leaves a lasting good impression. According to David: “We represent brands and the brands expect us to represent them in the best way possible. This can only happen if we provide an environment that allows for high performance, solid reliability, strong security and agile scalability. Esker has played a pivotal role in advancing the digital transformation of our Finance department.”

Esker’s solutions have delivered new levels of speed, efficiency and visibility to the team and have provided real-time insights into valuable AR metrics, cash allocation and collections performance.

The combination of timely payment allocation and proactive collections management has contributed to an improved customer experience and fostering fruitful customer relationships. “Cash Application provides easy remittance validation and seamless allocations, while Collections Management not only provides full visibility, automated reminder and statement delivery to customers, but also a self-service option for customers and a full overview of their account,” Likhorovitch continued.

The implementation of automated remittance advice processing has enabled the AR team to redirect their attention towards more impactful tasks, concurrently alleviating the stress associated with month-end activities. As a cloud-based solution, Esker has allowed the team to work without the need for a physical office presence, granting them the flexibility to work remotely if they choose to do so.

According to David, “It is important for us to invest in technology that is robust and easy to scale.” The company’s ongoing objective involves the addition of new brands, and to achieve this, True Alliance is actively seeking out systems capable of accommodating these expansions. The next cab off the rank is deploying Esker Credit Management to improve customer onboarding and exploring Esker Accounts Payable.

“Thanks to Esker, the visibility is now spread across all levels – operational, Finance and the customers.”
Noel David | General Manager, Finance and Administration, True Alliance