Company
Combining superior engineering with beautiful design, BLUNT Umbrellas’ patented technology delivers some of the most radical (and necessary) updates to the umbrella since its inception. Formed in England in 2006 before relocating to New Zealand, the business now boasts a physical presence in four countries (Australia, New Zealand, UK and USA) and serves a global audience via its e-commerce website and network of distributors and vendors in over 20 countries
Company size
Industry
Headquarters
Customer since
Products
Integrated software
Involved teams
Key outcomes
• Effortless handling of high-volume transactions
• Streamlined reconciliation for complex transactions
• Transparency and control over data
• Seamless subsidiary integration
BLUNT Umbrellas, the world’s most revolutionary umbrella brand, faced growing pains as their manual accounts payable workflow struggled to keep pace with international expansion. Increased sales and transactions across new territories demanded a robust financial management system to navigate international complexity and streamline multi-bank reconciliation and Payment Service Provider (PSP) integration.
The Challenge: Automating accounts payable for global expansion
Originally a standalone company from New Zealand selling globally through distributors, BLUNT Umbrellas experienced rapid growth. Launching a direct B2C e-commerce site, while also expanding its physical presence to include a subsidiary in Australia, BLUNT’s accounting needs further strained their ERP platform, Xero. The company needed an advanced ERP system to manage its multiple subsidiaries, expanding inventory, complex order fulfillment across multiple channels, and global financial operations.
Combining comprehensive stock, order management, and e-commerce integrations with best-in-class global accounting and consolidation functionalities, NetSuite OneWorld emerged as the ideal solution for BLUNT Umbrellas. BLUNT partnered with Fusion5, a leading APAC business advisor with a strong history of supporting disruptive brands, to drive the next stage of their growth.
Since implementing NetSuite with Fusion5, BLUNT Umbrellas expanded into new territories, boosted global online sales, and opened subsidiaries in the UK and North America. This growth, however, introduced new financial complexities that went beyond the standard ERP platform’s capabilities:
- Adding and mapping multiple bank accounts across subsidiaries
- Integrating with various payment service providers (PSPs)
- Handling thousands of transactions on a monthly basis with foreign currency, revaluations, adjustments, and processing fees
“We manage thousands and thousands of transactions every month, from various countries across multiple channels. This means that we are dealing, not only with a high volume of transactions, but complex ones which include foreign currency, revaluations, adjustments, and processing fees.” – Kate Callender, CFO at BLUNT Umbrellas
Faced with a high volume of monthly transactions from various countries and sales channels, BLUNT sought a multi-bank reconciliation tool for NetSuite to ensure automation and financial transparency, and gain line-level transaction visibility.
The Solution: Automated multi-bank reconciliation for NetSuite
BLUNT Umbrellas needed a bank reconciliation automation tool that was user-friendly and robust as well as capable of scaling with their growing business needs and could easily enable integrations with multiple PSPs. This solution needed to work flawlessly with their existing NetSuite system without disrupting their accounts payable processes.
Upon Fusion5’s recommendation, BLUNT adopted ZoneReconcile by Zone & Co, a NetSuite SuiteApp designed specifically to automate bank and credit card reconciliation. This strategic move played a key role in empowering BLUNT’s accounting team to handle their complex financial tasks with greater efficiency and less manual effort.
Three key factors made ZoneReconcile the clear choice over other solutions:
- In-platform NetSuite solution: It is a true plug-and-play solution that works seamlessly within the existing NetSuite platform. No additional software or complex configurations are required.
- Accurate matching: The solution was built to easily address financial challenges like foreign currency fluctuations, revaluations, adjustments, and processing fees, ensuring accurate reconciliations every time.
- Streamlined multi-subsidiary management: It easily reconciles multiple bank accounts, subsidiaries, and PSPs, providing a consolidated view of the business’s finances within a single, unified platform.
“Without ZoneReconcile, the two options would be for us to either manage everything manually, which would require a disproportionately high number of staff [members], or to do what many growing businesses do and sacrifice the level of detail we achieve by just importing summarized totals. Neither option was acceptable for us, so we’re delighted that Fusion5 introduced Zone & Co.” – Kate Callender, CFO at BLUNT Umbrellas
The Result: High-volume bank reconciliation with precision, directly in NetSuite
The implementation of NetSuite OneWorld and ZoneReconcile marked a significant turning point for BLUNT Umbrellas’ international business and financial operations. Kate's finance team gained significant time previously spent on manual reconciliation, freeing them up to focus on closing the books faster, reporting and generating data-driven insights, and supporting strategic decision-making.
“A huge advantage for us is that ZoneReconcile allows our Shopify orders to be reconciled automatically, saving us manually reconciling thousands of transactions every month.” – Kate Callender, CFO at BLUNT Umbrellas
By leveraging ZoneReconcile directly within their existing NetSuite environment, BLUNT Umbrellas achieved other significant improvements, such as:
Effortless handling of high-volume transactions: ZoneReconcile helps BLUNT’s finance team tackle the challenge of reconciling massive amounts of transactions, including thousands of Shopify orders every month. The team uses it seamlessly with over 20 bank accounts and various PSPs like Afterpay, PayPal, and AmazonPay.
Streamlined reconciliation for complex transactions: ZoneReconcile automatically reconciles complex transactions from bank statements, incl. foreign currency fluctuations, revaluations, adjustments, and processing fees. This ensures accuracy and saves BLUNT money on additional staff members who would otherwise be required to manually manage these intricate details across various regions.
Transparency and control over data: With ZoneReconcile, Kate's team gets a single source of truth for all sales transaction records directly in NetSuite, from high-level summaries to line-item breakdowns. With auto-matching reconciliation based on date, amount, or reference, the team maintains confidence in the data’s precision and accuracy.
Seamless subsidiary integration: ZoneReconcile ensures everything works smoothly within new subsidiaries when adding multiple bank accounts. This eliminates potential integration issues and wasted time troubleshooting so BLUNT’s team can focus on other aspects of setting up the new location, confident that the financial systems are functioning smoothly.
“I can’t get over how easy it is to add and map new bank accounts. Each time we expand into a new territory, there is a lot of admin - [let alone] setting up a bank account. With ZoneReconcile, the process is so straightforward that we can manage it easily in-house, and everything just works within the new subsidiary. It’s a real game changer to not even have to think about this as we grow.” – Kate Callender, CFO at BLUNT Umbrellas
Conclusion
ZoneReconcile is not just a NetSuite add-on but a core component that enhances the operational efficiency of BLUNT’s accounts payable team. Implementing Zone & Co’s bank reconciliation solution and NetSuite OneWorld was a strategic move for BLUNT, ensuring completely automated bank reconciliation, financial transparency and detailed insights into every transaction as the company continues to scale up.
“I would recommend ZoneReconcile to any NetSuite user. I can’t see how you can run NetSuite effectively without it and I certainly cannot see any situation where we do not use the tool.” – Kate Callender, CFO at BLUNT Umbrellas
Join 3,000+ businesses that trust Zone to automate and manage their finance operations in NetSuite. Book a free demo today and learn how ZoneReconcile can meet your specific business needs.
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