CSols unblocks cashflow pinch points thanks to invoice finance from Kriya
The last couple of years have been challenging for businesses of all sizes, primarily due to Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic, and they are now navigating a period of economic instability. The smaller firms have faced some of the toughest challenges, with cash flow pinch points affecting their ability to operate effectively. CSols, a laboratory informatics company, has found a way to unblock these cash flow pinch points, thanks to its collaboration with Kriya - namely, invoice finance.
What’s the CSols story?
CSols is a software solutions provider for laboratory data management, laboratory automation, and instrument integration. Since 1990, their software solutions have helped laboratories to improve their productivity, efficiency, and data quality.
CSols provide solutions for industries such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, food and beverage, oil and gas, environmental, and more. They also offer consultation and support services for their software solutions.
CSols was established over three decades ago with the aim of providing analytical laboratory automation solutions to organisations worldwide. Over the years, the company has expanded and diversified its product offerings to include sample tracking, instrument interfacing, and laboratory quality control systems.
As a result of its unique and innovative approach, CSols has become a leading provider of laboratory informatics solutions, primarily in the UK but with an increasing presence in Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific.
Challenges along the way
Despite its success, CSols has not been immune to the challenges faced by businesses in recent years. In 2016, the company faced a significant setback when the UK voted to leave the European Union, leading to a decline in orders and uncertainty in the business environment.
Then, in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic hit, leading to widespread lockdowns, travel restrictions, and reduced demand for laboratory automation solutions. As a result, CSols, like many other businesses, faced significant cash flow pinch points, which impacted its ability to pay suppliers, and invest in research and development. With the energy crisis and the conflict in Ukraine, there has been a need for simple funding for complex times.
As Phil Goddard, Director at CSols, recalls: “Big projects and larger contracts were few and far between. So revenues suffered, and planning became harder month-to-month. In turn, this made it harder to secure funding from traditional sources such as banks. We managed to receive a small grant from the EU of less than £10,000, which in-turn allowed us to access £250,000 from Innovate UK but I knew that even this would not go far.”
Invoice finance unblocks cash flow pinch points
And so they turned to invoice finance to ease cash flow challenges, and access the funds they needed. Fortunately, they chose Kriya after comparing against another lender - flexibility and credibility were key in the decision.
By using Kriya’s invoice finance solution, CSols was able to receive upfront cash for their outstanding invoices, which helped to improve their cash flow and secure the working capital needed to continue operation. Invoice financing allowed them to invest in business growth, their technology and pay salaries without any risk being passed on to their customers and staff.
They found that the process was relatively hassle-free and helped them to maintain good relationships with their customers and employees during what was a challenging time for everyone.
As Phil explained: “Invoice factoring via Kriya is a straightforward mechanism for getting an extra month’s cash into a company. I must also say Kriya’s invoice finance requires a lower level of management effort than I have experienced with other cash sources we have used.”
CSols has partnered with Kriya since 2016, with an invoice finance facility that has grown year-on-year in line with their growing business. They work with a number of different clients across the UK and Europe, and Kriya funds these invoices through the facility.
This means that CSols can access the cash otherwise locked up in these invoices straight away rather than waiting for the payments. This generates cash flow that can be used to invest in their cutting edge technology.
Fast-forward to 2022 and Kriya is proud to have played a small role in the success of CSols, currently growing at 25% year-on-year.
Helping CSols deliver big impact in meaningful ways
CSols collaborates with the Computer Science Department at the University of Liverpool in research and development projects. The university has conducted an impact study on CSols, which examines the influence of their software solutions on laboratory productivity, efficiency, and data quality.
CSols also works with the university on research projects related to laboratory data management and automation. This collaboration allows CSols to stay up-to-date with the latest developments in software technology and to improve their laboratory focussed solutions to meet the changing needs of the industry.
What’s next for CSols?
Looking to the future, CSols is confident about its prospects, despite the challenges of the last few years. The company is focused on expanding its global presence and continuing to innovate and develop new laboratory automation solutions.
Thanks to its collaboration with Kriya and invoice finance, CSols has the working capital it needs to achieve its goals and continue providing its customers with the best possible laboratory informatics solutions.
“Thanks to Kriya, we weathered the Covid storm - we were able to invest in our technology, and there was no need for redundancies. And we are again growing in a sustainable way.”
“We expect our B2B revenues to double as a result of providing Kriya’s flexible payment terms to our trade and business buyers.”
Stuart Zissman, Head of Financial Services
Halfords is the UK’s leading provider of motoring and cycling services and products. Its customers shop across over 1,750 fixed and mobile locations including, Halfords stores and garages, as well as its website, halfords.com.
Today, around a quarter of Halfords turnover is business-to-business. They sell to organisations of all sizes including SME businesses, garages, and workshops, offering discounts on automotive parts and tools with their Trade Card, as well as directly to larger commercial and government customers that buy in bulk.
However, like many well-established enterprises, Halfords found its future growth was challenged by the legacy processes of its past. Find out how they’ve teamed up with Kriya to remove the friction from their B2B commerce.
Halford's challenges
“The exam question” says Halfords’ Head of Financial Services, Stuart Zissman, “was how do we make selling to business and trade buyers less labour-intensive?” Having already overseen a successful consumer finance proposition at Halfords, it was clear to Zissman that their B2B offering had potential to grow by introducing a simple and effective credit solution.
1. B2B buyers expect payments terms
“All successful B2B propositions have some sort of financial support” Zissman explains. Whether large or small, Halfords’ business buyers want to be invoiced on payment terms. This is especially beneficial for garages and workshops, which thrive on efficient working capital cycles, allowing them to source parts upfront and defer payment until they have received compensation for their services.
Halfords recognised the opportunity to enhance their offerings by providing scalable trade credit, which was previously untapped. As Zissman says, "offering payments completes the circle."
2. Manual, unscalable processes were holding back growth
Halfords' hands-on approach to B2B processes presented an opportunity for greater scalability and growth. Wholesale orders, managed via account managers, involved manual quotes and purchase orders, which added complexity.
“We’d like to say yes to every single customer that wants to order from us,” says Head of Trade Card, Chris Millan. However, processing these detailed orders for existing buyers took time, limiting the retailer's ability to proactively attract new business and expand their account base.
What Halfords sought was a way to make their B2B offering more accessible and achieve a better economy of scale.
“We work with sole traders, business customers and government entities. Kriya is the only supplier that could support all three.”
Chris Millan, Head of Trade Card
The search for a solution
Recognising the need for change, Halfords set out to find a way to modernise its B2B offering. With Kriya's 12-year track record and willingness to collaborate on a solution for their unique requirements struck a chord with Halfords.
A solution for all B2B buyers
Halfords has a diverse buyer base and needed B2B payment terms that could be offered to limited companies, government entities and sole traders.
Multichannel
With trade customers already purchasing online and in-store, Halfords needed a solution to offer payment terms holistically across their sales channels.
Risk expertise
With their focus on Motoring and Cycling, Halfords sought a partner with strong expertise in finance and payments, including robust credit and fraud detection capabilities, to help onboard their buyers.
“We are experts in motoring and cycling, and to ensure exceptional service for our customers, we decided to partner with Kriya, specialists in B2B payments and lending decisions.” Stuart Zissman, Head of Financial Services
The B2B vision
Halfords partnered with Kriya to transform their B2B offering. By integrating Kriya PayLater with their Trade Card, the retailer is combining trade discounts for B2B buyers with the ability to pay on account for online and in-store orders.
Adopting an eCommerce-first model has a number of advantages. Firstly, providing online buyers with highly-demanded payment terms expands the businesses they can sell to. Secondly, much of their offline business can be shifted to a self-serve, online checkout. Not only does this provide a smoother buyer experience, it also frees up the Halfords team to focus on the customers where their expertise has the most impact.
The near-infinite scalability of the Kriya solution means Halfords can not only improve their overall B2B customer proposition and experience, but they can also see financial benefits through the partnership too.
“Offering trade credit through payments makes it much slicker. It’s something buyers are familiar with from the consumer world.”Chris Millan, Head of Trade Card
Wholesale change
Halfords have kicked off their payments transformation with their wholesale offering.
Business buyers come to the Halfords wholesale team to place bulk orders and request custom details, such as branded bikes and accessories. Before Kriya, this fully offline sales channel required multiple teams and processes to transact each order. This process led to delays and hampered conversion, such as inventory becoming unavailable during the order, or customers purchasing elsewhere.
By streamlining the entire wholesale workflow into Kriya Merchant Portal, Halfords now have a single, automated flow for processing orders.
Wholesale buyers are first onboarded into Merchant Portal. This screens for credit and fraud risk, directly providing their sales team an instant spending limit decision for the buyer. Orders can then be placed on payment terms and invoices are automatically generated for the buyer. Additionally, Kriya assists with credit control by managing payment collections too.
“We needed a way forward that was less hands-on because the whole process was very, very manual.” Chris Millan, Head of Trade Card
How it works
The buyer places a wholesale order with Halfords
Halfords onboard the buyer into Kriya’s Merchant Portal
Payment terms selected and purchase complete. The buyer pays at the end of the following month.
Partnering for growth
Reflecting on the journey so far with Kriya, Zissman says “It’s that personal touch and relationship that makes the difference to the product we’re building together.” For Zissman, it's not simply outsourcing the expertise to a third party. “It’s more like we’re onboarding Kriya into Halfords and by extension they’ve become part of our team”.
There’s a busy roadmap ahead for Halfords and Kriya, with plans to bring the whole multichannel offering to market by the autumn of 2024.
We're very excited about this development,” says Millan. “Introducing payment terms to our Trade offering eliminates barriers that previously slowed us down and unlocks opportunities with a vast number of businesses we haven't historically engaged with.”
