Credit management for electrical distributors.

Electrical supply runs on trade credit. A contractor wins a job, needs wire and panels on Tuesday, and expects an account by Wednesday. Most of those accounts are small, a few are very large, and the difference between the two isn't obvious from the purchase order.

The credit team's job is to say yes quickly to the ones who pay and to notice, early, the ones who won't. That's hard to do from a spreadsheet and a bureau login.

What credit looks like for electrical distributors

• Speed at the counter. A new contractor at the branch wants an account today. The application has to be easy to fill in on a phone, and the approval has to route to someone who can make it without a phone call to head office.
• Many small accounts, a few big ones. The same process has to handle a $2,000 account and a $200,000 one without over-investigating the first or under-investigating the second.
• Who is the customer, exactly?. Contractors trade under names that aren't their registered entity, incorporate and re-incorporate, and change ownership. Getting the legal name wrong is how a lien or a claim ends up naming the wrong company.
• Branches with their own habits. Regional managers extend terms differently, and head office needs one view of exposure across all of them.

How Credlab fits

• An application contractors will finish. A branded online credit application at a secure link, with a business-name search at intake so the registered legal name goes on the file, and e-signature with reminders that run themselves.
• References and bank, verified for you. Suppliers get a self-service link; the ones who don't answer get a call from a Credlab analyst. Where you require it, the applicant connects their business bank account through Plaid, read-only, as a step in the form.
• A report written for the decision. A suggested limit, when to expect payment and a risk level, in plain English, with the public record and references behind them. Turnaround averages 48 hours.
• Per-branch configuration, one account. Each location gets its own form, terms and routing; head office gets the queue, the dashboard and the audit trail across all of them.

The pieces, in more detail: the online credit application, business credit reports, trade references and bank verification, and the workspace that holds them together.