For many wholesale suppliers, the biggest threat to growth isn’t winning more orders, it’s getting paid for the ones they already have.
That was exactly the challenge facing 3 Tier Food Services, a Melbourne-based wholesale gourmet food supplier established in 2004.
COVID changed the way customers were paying, creating more risk, slower cash flow, and far too much time spent chasing overdue invoices. Something had to change.
We speak to Nick Haritos, Managing Director, about how the business has streamlined their finances with Payments.
Before COVID, around 85% of 3 Tier Food Services’ customers were paying cash on delivery.
During the pandemic, suppliers extended more credit to help venues survive. Customers began ordering first and paying later, and those habits stuck. That created a dangerous gap between fulfilling an order and actually receiving the money. Some customers simply never paid.
“We found we were actually getting burnt by a few people. They were putting orders in and then just not paying. We just couldn’t retrieve the money for those invoices.”
At the same time, they still had their own suppliers and overheads to pay.
“We’ve got suppliers knocking on doors and constantly asking for us to pay them.”
Cash flow became the biggest source of stress in the business.