Hakro: How to Save a Mid Five-Figure Amount in Interest with Agicap
Nicole Trumpp, Head of the Finance and Success team at Hakro, recalls the pain of financing their textiles stock with multiple concurrent loans almost a year in advance and setting up reminders to pay them back in time. After six months with Agicap, she is happy to report how the tool saved the company tens of thousands of Euros in interest by having a far more precise cash flow forecasting.
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Key takeaways
Hakro is a leading provider of corporate wear. The high demand for their products requires the purchasing department to buy large quantities of textiles in advance for its never-out-of-stock system. The finance team needs to pre-finance this stock up to 75% of its price for extended periods (half to three-quarters of a year in advance). They previously took up many loans concurrently to avoid liquidity bottlenecks, leading to uncertainty and fear regarding cash flow fluctuations.
The finance team was looking for a solution to a) achieve a clear, concise, and forecastable overview of cash flow to sustain Hakro’s business model, b) avoid liquidity bottlenecks and manage loans more effectively, and c) make confident decisions regarding when to take up and pay off loans.
Through the implementation of Agicap, Hakro gained a clearer and more reliable cash flow forecast. This enabled the finance team to pay off debts more swiftly with identifiable excess cash, saving on high interest. In effect, Hakro saved a mid five-figure amount in interest within the first six months of using Agicap.
" Our biggest challenge in cash flow management is pre-financing our ordered materials, always looking at how much credit we have in our various bank accounts. Whether we have to accept any additional financing from the banks. "
55+
years of existence
200+
employees
50,000 to 75,000 Euro
saved in interest over 6 months
Customer’s history
Hakro was founded in 1969 by married couple Harry and Marianne Kroll. The company name is made up of the initials of HArry KROll. The textile retailer was a firm believer in high quality garments and thus chose to found his own textile company, which now has grown to a mid-market leader in corporate wear.
As an in-demand and highly sustainable textile brand, Hakro operates with a never-out-of-stock-system which can store up to 6 million pieces of textiles at any given time. This requires the purchasing department to plan and buy materials half or three quarters of a year in advance and for the finance team to follow suit and finance these orders half or three quarters of a year in advance at 75%. This was possible only by making use of several concurrent bank loans to bridge the liquidity gap. And managing these loans and their timely interest payments was one of the biggest challenges for Nicole Trumpp.
Nicole Trumpp joined Hakro 26 years ago and is now working as Head of the “Finance and Success” team, overseeing a team of 8 finance professionals. Trumpp’s longevity at the company is not a fluke. More than 30 % of the staff has been working for more than ten years at the company. One of the main goals for Trumpp was to efficiently manage the cashflow and all loan payments.
" My difficulty in cash flow planning for incoming goods was to manage it all in Excel, writing down when payments are due, when deliveries are expected, and then setting Outlook appointments with myself to keep track of the payments. "
Customer’s needs
Optimise cash visibility for better debt management.
Simplify the process and timing of paying off loans by identifying periods of cash surplus more confidently
Achieve cash flow security for operations by forecasting cash needs
Solution
It speaks to one of the charms of Hakro that the respective departments of the company have their actual goals integrated in their titles. Hence Nicole Trumpp is the Head of Finance and Success, not just Finance. And a significant part of her success in financial management was due to the implementation of Agicap in the spring of 2024.
Having worked for a long time with Excel spreadsheets and Outlook calendar appointments for herself and her team members to keep an overview of their delivery orders, their multiple loans and their loan payments, Agicap proved to be a real game-changer for Hakro’s finance team.
To handle the increasingly complex demands caused by the company’s growth, Nicole Trumpp sought a cash flow management tool that could automate and streamline most of her daily activities on an easily readable dashboard. Agicap integrated all 8 bank accounts of Hakro, providing a cumulative view of balances and allowing for better financial oversight.
The consolidated view in the cash flow software also enabled Nicole Trumpp to focus on strategic tasks and team management, rather than getting bogged down in manual data entry. The tool offers customizable dashboards for tracking income and expenses, which aids in reporting to management without the need for manual emails.
Previously, Hakro’s purchasing department generated orders in Excel once a day. When goods arrived, they would disappear from the Excel sheet. However, Nicole Trumpp then had to manually filter through the Excel to determine delivery dates and prepayment percentages.
This manual process was no longer feasible due to Hakro’s large sales volume and was a significant time drain for Trumpp. Agicap now allows for automatic daily updates from a prepared and daily refreshed Excel file, showing upcoming payments over the next six months, significantly reducing manual calculations and saving time.
" In collaboration with Agicap and our IT company, we created an Excel sheet for Agicap that automatically updates daily. This allows me to see at a glance which payments I need to make each month, simplifying my work immensely. I no longer have to calculate everything manually; it updates automatically every day. When I open my Agicap system in the morning, I can immediately see what payments are due over the next six months. I can also integrate open items from financial accounting into AGICAP, giving me insight into planned revenues. "
The onboarding process was also very thorough in Nicole Trumpp’s view, with tailored solutions provided quickly. Ongoing customer support was very responsive and effective in resolving issues.
" I would highly recommend AGICAP to other medium-sized companies, as liquidity planning and cash flow management are significantly simplified. "
Conclusion
Agicap is the ideal cash flow software for growing mid-market businesses which seek to automate and simplify their cash flow management. If the business model relies on huge amounts of pre-financing, Agicap can help to give a better and more reliable overview of the actual cash flows to better manage and pay off loans more confidently.
The software can help to reduce time spent on aggregating, reconciling and validating cash flow data significantly.
It is a real game-changer for the communication between finance teams and the company’s decision-makers, who are all on the same page about the actual cashflow data with shared, readily available and up-to-date dashboards, which can also be accessed on mobile devices.
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