FairWave is a specialty coffee collective with a mission—to respect every hand in the journey from seed to cup. Headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, the collective now stands at 10 brands throughout Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Minnesota and is continuing to grow fast. FairWave helps each new coffee and tea member brand stay independent while enjoying economies of scale.
“Our goal is to help these small, local coffee shops grow their business without really changing their brand. We just take away some of the headaches,” says Derek Braun, FP&A Manager.
“Indie brands don’t have the resources to compete with the big guys. They don’t have the clout to negotiate the best prices and drive costs down. FairWave helps level the playing field.”
Needless to say, managing multiple brands isn’t easy.
“Each brand has its own look and feel. Its own employees and culture,” says Braun. “The challenge is to protect all that while consolidating our financial operations, creating one cohesive team that can give the corporate Goliaths a run for their money.”
“Each brand has its own look and feel. Its own employees and culture. The challenge is to protect all that while consolidating our financial operations, creating one cohesive team that can give the corporate Goliaths a run for their money.”
Plenty of companies oversee multiple locations, but managing multiple brands is an enterprise game. It isn’t something most midsize companies are prepared to take on.
For FairWave, the challenge was clear—build affordable, scalable systems that could handle the complexity without the huge overhead that comes with it.
“We’re growing fast,” says Braun, “adding a new brand every three months. We have to integrate each of their financial operations as quickly as possible. Their accounts payable. Their spend and expense systems. Their lines of credit. With so many brands under one roof, integrating and standardizing those processes is everything.”
But while that integration is happening, the day-to-day work doesn’t stop.
“They’re still doing everything they need to do for their business. They’re ordering supplies and paying employees. They’re writing checks. And they don’t always have a modern financial tech stack. It’s more like ‘Where’s this receipt? What was this $42 charge for?’ It can eat up a lot of hours to track those things down.”
“We have to integrate each of their financial operations as quickly as possible. Their accounts payable. Their spend and expense systems. Their lines of credit. With so many brands under one roof, integrating and standardizing those processes is everything.”
With so much on the line, FairWave brought in a consultant who was familiar with large-scale operations like Applebees and Hawaiian Bros. That consultant recommended BILL.
“We were sold on BILL in the first five minutes,” says Jim Lower, FairWave’s Corporate Controller. “With old-school systems, there’s always a tradeoff. Increasing financial control adds approval steps that slow everything down. BILL streamlines financial operations while increasing things like control and visibility. It’s a game changer.”
Braun agrees. “In managing our annual budgets, I track a lot of travel and entertainment expenses. That means a lot of receipts. BILL’s platform makes it extremely easy to make sure people are being good stewards of those resources.”
“With old-school systems, there’s always a tradeoff. Increasing financial control adds approval steps that slow everything down. BILL streamlines financial operations while increasing things like control and visibility. It’s a game changer.”
FairWave started by implementing BILL Accounts Payable and added BILL Spend & Expense soon after.
“The Spend & Expense implementation happened in a couple hours,” Braun says. “We walked through one subsidiary, then did a couple more in the afternoon. We set up everything in different markets, with a different line for each location.”
According to Braun, the results were immediate. Adding BILL Spend & Expense saved the company over 144 hours per year in their monthly close alone.
“Think about the sheer number of receipts,” Braun says. “It takes so many hours to chase those down and figure things out when you have to do it by email. Today, 98% of our credit cards are managed through BILL Spend & Expense, so everything’s in one place. Every card user across all our brands. Every receipt. They can just take a photo and add the receipt to the app. BILL has reduced our close cycle by at least 12 hours.”*
At FairWave, the most active users of BILL Spend & Expense are the purchasing managers who run each department. For example, their marketing team uses Spend & Expense for online ad spend on platforms like Facebook and Shopify. After that are the delivery drivers, who receive a physical BILL Divvy card to use for gas after being with the company for six months.
“Before, we were using different gas cards. Now drivers don’t have to share cards for the truck. Each driver is assigned their own card. It’s made the whole process a lot more streamlined. And we don't have to worry about someone forgetting to take their card with them because they have the card on their phone at all times in their digital wallet, on top of the physical one.”
“Plus,” Braun adds, “drivers come and go. As turnover happens, it’s been very easy to shut off the card and reallocate the funds.”
“And we can set budgets ahead of time for things like a specialty coffee conference or a big team event. I know what we expect to spend, and the card user can always see how much budget they have left. We didn't previously have much insight as to how we were spending our money for big team events. Now, we do.”
*BILL Divvy Card is issued by Cross River Bank, member FDIC. This is not a deposit product.
“Today, 98% of our credit cards are managed through BILL Spend & Expense, so everything’s in one place. Every card user across all our brands. Every receipt. They can just take a photo and add the receipt to the app. BILL has reduced our close cycle by at least 12 hours.”
Braun notes the seamless integration with Netsuite as another key benefit of using BILL.
“BILL gets me that data faster. And I can push that information out faster. With BILL’s integration straight into NetSuite and being able to check the journal entries against it, every step gets that data into the hands of decision-makers faster.”
“With BILL’s integration straight into NetSuite and being able to check the journal entries against it, every step gets that data into the hands of decision-makers faster.”
“BILL has removed the need to hire additional AP headcount, while still completing twice the amount of expected work,” Braun noted.
“It's delivering efficiencies well beyond the accounting side of things. We're getting a bunch of answers out quicker than we otherwise would be. Ultimately, BILL just makes us a more efficient business.”
“BILL has removed the need to hire additional AP headcount, while still completing twice the amount of expected work. Ultimately, BILL just makes us a more efficient business.”
