case studies

How Eclipse Importers got its groove back with Moselle

Moselle Research Team

Since the 1980s, Sami Sandhu has imported bulk foods commodities and ingredients for his Toronto wholesale businesses. Starting off with importing goods from his home country of Guyana, Sami moved on to focus on North American-sourced nuts for better profit margins for his latter business, Eclipse Importers, founded in 2013.

The Challenge

In the early days of Eclipse Importers, it was difficult to secure enough capital to cover the upfront cost of shipments. When Sami opened Eclipse Importers, he was startled to discover that the good credit he had built up with the bank over decades from a previous successful business, did not apply to Eclipse Importers.

For this reason, he was unable to obtain a line of credit for his new business and often had to wrangle Eclipse Importers’ accounts receivables (A/R) to purchase shipments, which would later lead to operational expense issues. 

In 2015, as securing stable trade financing for Eclipse Importers became a consistent and recurring friction point for business, Sami made the difficult decision to purchase solely from local distributors, without importing. Eclipse Importers scaled back significantly to reconcile with the higher overhead costs brought on by purchasing from local distributors. 

What Did They Do?

Discouraged by the stunted growth, Sami opened up to Moselle, hoping to find solutions to help the business import again and to scale up. Plugging Eclipse Importers’s Quickbooks into our platform, Moselle delved into the company’s accounts receivable (A/R) and accounts payable (A/P) data and validated the company’s cash flow pain points as described by Sami. 

All of Eclipse Importers’s past clients paid, but over inconsistent payment terms, and the average received payment took 60 days, 15 more days than projected. Moselle determined the typical length of payment for each of Eclipse Importers’s A/Rs, which helped to build a creditworthiness profile for each of their clients. 

For the clients that required longer than average payment terms, it was often to accommodate the needs of buyers, even though this prolonged the window of payment and risk for Eclipse Importers. Moselle identified these customers with this pattern and came up with a plan to help offset the risk for Eclipse Importers.

Moving forward

Delivering valuable insights on clients and their payment patterns, Moselle helped Eclipse Importers to understand average payment times, identifying riskier clients, and the solutions available to plan ahead. 

Right within the insights report, Eclipse Importers could easily see all the financial solutions available for the next shipment. Moselle offered Eclipse Importers competitive purchasing loans against its A/Rs, based on client credit worthiness, to continue the momentum for the business. 

With deeper understanding of his business finances and more cash on hand, Sami is able to import again and grow Eclipse Importers to the heights he’s always dreamed of. 

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At Moselle, we respect the privacy of businesses by asking businesses what they are comfortable with sharing publicly in case studies. The owner of Eclipse Importers has asked to remain anonymous and has been addressed as “Sami”.