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Sector · Building materials & construction supply distribution
Credit management software for building materials distributors: control construction risk without slowing down the trade counter
Thousands of tradespeople and construction firms, payments that follow the progress of building sites, a sector where business failures are frequent: Hoopiz organises collections across your entire portfolio together with your branches, monitors customer risk continuously and, through its APIs, decides on new account openings in minutes.
* Typical example based on our projects in building materials distribution, anonymised.
Illustration · fictitious data
Sector challenges
Building materials distribution: thousands of construction accounts, high risk and a trade counter that won’t wait
Chasing thousands of small accounts, spotting failures in time, deciding quickly at branch level: six realities of accounts receivable in building materials distribution.
A sector with a high failure rate
Construction is one of the sectors most exposed to business failures: a tradesperson can tip over in a matter of weeks, and the alert must arrive before the next delivery.
Thousands of small balances
Thousands of accounts with balances of a few thousand euros each: it is impossible to chase and analyse them all by hand.
Payments tied to building sites
Payments follow the progress of building sites and settlements from project owners: a delay on a large site ripples down to the tradesperson.
Branch or head office: who chases?
The branch manager knows the tradesperson and wants to keep the relationship; the credit department must enforce the common policy. Collections must involve both.
New accounts opened every day
Tradespeople, construction SMEs, sole traders: branches open accounts continuously and want an immediate answer so as not to lose the sale.
Delivery and returns disputes
Quantities, breakages, returned materials, returnable pallets, site-specific pricing: disputes hold up payments and are settled at branch level.
The foundation
Collections and customer risk: the foundation of your credit policy
Whatever the sector, two pillars come first: organised collections and customer risk under constant watch. Here is how Hoopiz adapts them to building materials distribution.
Organise collections
Thousands of small accounts: collections must run on their own for simple cases and involve the branch when needed.
- Scenarios by customer type: tradespeople, general contractors, public bodies: each segment gets its own pace
- Every channel: email, text message, letter, guided call, fully automated, semi-automated or manual depending on what is at stake, with a complete history of every exchange
- Branches involved: the branch manager sees their accounts, makes the guided calls and shares disputes with head office
- Connected debt recovery: cases handed over to Agir Recouvrement or Cabinet ARC with no re-keying
Control customer risk
In construction, one of the sectors most exposed to business failures, monitoring must be continuous.
- Creditsafe, Ellisphere, Infolegale: your own contracts connected: scores and legal information directly in Hoopiz, without going through their portals
- Alerts across the whole portfolio: court rulings, liens, score downgrades, lengthening payment delays
- Automatic account holds: for accounts that are overdue or over their limit, released as soon as they are back in order
- Account opening: decided in minutes according to your rules, through the APIs
And depending on your organisation: PILOT for steering and consolidation, COVER for credit insurance, CONNECT for APIs, FACTOR for factoring. See the 6 modules ↓
Example
An account opening request, handled in 3 minutes
A tradesperson asks to open an account at the trade counter of the Nantes branch.
The branch enters the request in its usual tool. Through the APIs, Hoopiz queries the data provider, applies your internal rules and checks the available credit insurance cover: a credit limit is proposed and the account is created in the ERP. If the application falls outside the rules, it is routed to the credit manager with all the information already gathered.
In practice
What Hoopiz changes for a building materials distributor
Disputes
Building materials disputes, categorised and shared with branches
Each reason is configured: branches handle their own disputes, head office measures what is holding up payments.
How a building materials distributor industrialised its collections and automated account openings
- SectorBuilding materials distribution
- OrganisationNational network of branches
- CustomersTradespeople and construction firms
- ModulesCOLLECT, RISK, CONNECT, COVER
The context
Thousands of accounts chased by hand, branches and a credit department that did not share information, business failures discovered too late, and account openings that took 48 hours and cost sales.
What was put in place
Collection workflows by customer type with branches involved, portfolio monitoring through data providers with automatic blocking of at-risk accounts, and APIs integrated into the branches’ tool to decide on account openings and create the account in the ERP.
Typical example based on projects supported by Hoopiz, anonymised · results observed after 12 months, varying with the starting situation.
Connected to your ecosystem
Hoopiz integrates with your information system
Invoices and payments flow in from your ERP; the CONNECT APIs also link the branches’ tool for account openings.
The platform
The 6 Hoopiz modules, applied to building materials distribution
Collections and risk first, then the modules that fit your organisation. They all share the same data.
FAQ
Credit management and building materials distribution: your questions
More questions? See our full FAQ.
How can you chase thousands of tradespeople and construction firms effectively?
With automated workflows by customer type, across every channel: email, SMS, letters and guided calls. Branches are involved in collections and disputes, head office keeps visibility and everything is logged.
How can you speed up opening trade accounts?
By integrating credit management APIs into the branches’ tool: Hoopiz automatically queries the data provider, your internal rules and credit insurance, proposes a credit limit and creates the account in the ERP, in minutes.
Can credit decisions be automated without losing control?
Yes. You define your rules; Hoopiz automatically processes compliant requests and routes those falling outside the rules to the credit manager, with all the information gathered. Every decision is traceable.
How can you limit the risk of business failure in construction?
By continuously monitoring your portfolio with alerts from data providers (court rulings, liens, changes in scoring) and payment behaviour, and by automatically blocking accounts that are over limit or overdue.
Does Hoopiz integrate with our ERP and branch tools?
Yes, through the CONNECT module and its APIs, which orchestrate exchanges between your tools, Hoopiz and financial services.
Construction risk under control, from the trade counter to collections
In a demo, we show you Hoopiz on a building materials distribution portfolio: collections with branches, risk monitoring and account openings via API.