Serving New York City’s Best Restaurants Takes More Than Great Seafood
How Aqua Best uses Lighthouse insights to reduce operational risk and better support its 400+ customers
When more than half of New York City’s Michelin-rated restaurants depend on you for seafood, smart operational systems are a must. It’s why Aqua Best depends on Wholesail.
“With the number of customers we have, it can be difficult to stay on top of payments,” says Freeman Wong, co-owner.
Freeman and his brother, Steven, have helped grow Aqua Best to serve more than 400 weekly customers – a big change from their humble “mom and pop” beginnings, which began decades ago just blocks from the original Fulton Fish Market downtown NYC.
Over the years, the family learned how to procure the best seafood, working directly with local fishermen to reel in the freshest local catches for their customers. The growth of their family-run business – along with their desire to be hands-on in the buying process – makes operational efficiency a top priority. It’s why they chose NetYield, an accounting and inventory management system designed specifically for seafood companies. Wholesail partners with NetYield to streamline the accounts receivable process – and help customers reduce risk when extending credit terms to their buyers.
Aqua Best recently provided Wholesail with feedback on their experience after using the platform for nearly a year. Here’s what Freeman had to say.
Half of your customers pay online via Wholesail. How has that helped your business?
It’s really nice. I’m able to track who’s making payments all on one platform, which makes things easy for me. I’ve saved access to Wholesail on my phone, so I can pull it up anytime to see who has paid and who hasn’t. It’s easy to see who is 30, 60, or 90 days past due, which helps us to chip away at the outstanding receivables.
44% of your customers have signed up for Autopay. Has this changed how you do business?
It allows me to focus more on selling and growing the business, without worrying about where the funds are going to come from. It’s helpful to see at a glance how much money is coming in, so I can best allocate that money to pay my vendors.
“Having the autopay feature that runs payments automatically helps tremendously with reduction of hours spent chasing and processing payments.”
Has the platform’s New Customer Form been helpful?
Yes. I’ve been sending all new customers to this form, which automatically sets them up on Autopay. This helps a lot, so I don’t have to worry about forgetting to collect from someone. Getting them set up on Autopay right away ensures we get paid.
Wholesail recently launched Lighthouse, an anonymous exchange of buyer payment history for the food and beverage industry – can you share your experience?
We’re already using Lighthouse to make real decisions. In some cases, that means cutting accounts off or sending them to collections. The information is genuinely invaluable.
When I look back at one customer, Lighthouse shows they owed other seafood vendors $50,000. If I’d seen that earlier, I never would have let my exposure get as high as it did. We ended up at over $20,000 outstanding, and now it’ s closer to $26,000 once collection fees are included. With that visibility upfront, we would have stopped extending credit much earlier.
Has Wholesail helped you better communicate with customers with past-due invoices?
Yes. I can go to a customer’s default page and see columns for 30 or 60-days past due. It’s awesome that I can now check a couple of boxes and resend invoices or send statements with a click. I can even send a message to the customer letting them know that, without payment, I’ll need to put them on a credit hold. Plus, I can send an email directly to the customer’s contact while also including internal team members, like myself and accounting. I can even add my nighttime crew who enter orders, so they’re aware that this customer is on a credit hold.
Overall, are you happy with your Wholesail experience?
I am. They are responsive to feedback. On our most recent call, I learned that they made a change based on my prior feedback on the New Customer Form. I was frustrated that the forms got stuck in processing when a customer didn’t complete bank verification. Now I’ll be able to accept a new customer form even when the bank verification is still pending.
I also shared with their product and customer success team how I’ve been using Lighthouse and how it would be helpful to be able to push notifications about potential high-risk customers to both the sales team who are signing them up and my team members that process orders. This would make the platform’s insight more actionable – and they seemed open to this feedback.