Arpadis collects more than €100M in the last 12 months with Kolleno

About Arpadis 

Arpadis is a fast-growing chemical distribution business, employing more 100 people across four continents, including Europe, North America, and Africa. Established in 1999, the company has built a strong presence across Benelux, Germany, France, the UK, and Portugal, operating through a network of subsidiaries and generating more than $25 million in annual revenue, with estimates reaching up to $27.1 million.

For over 20 years, Arpadis has earned a reputation as a trusted partner to leading global manufacturers, thanks to its extensive product range and deep industry expertise. With a strong focus on Acrylates, Monomers, and Polyurethanes, the company continues to expand, innovate, and adapt to the evolving needs of the market.

The Challenges

What led Arpadis to search for an Accounts Receivable Software?

As the company grew, so did the volume of invoices. The team found itself overwhelmed by the number of invoices, emails, follow-ups, and payment reconciliations that needed to be managed. Without a centralized view of receivables or a way to track client communications, they began searching for a tool to help automate and structure their collections and accounts receivable management

Delayed payments, High DSO

Relying on spreadsheets and traditional follow-up methods led to delayed payments, rising Days Sales Outstanding, and cash flow pressures that impacted the company’s financial stability.

Without an automated system, the finance team struggled to send timely payment reminders and reconcile payments efficiently. These inefficiencies prolonged collections cycles, increased the risk of overdue accounts, and placed a heavy operational burden on internal teams.

As payment delays continued to accumulate, it became clear that manual processes were no longer sufficient. Arpadis needed a smarter, more scalable solution to ensure proactive collections, faster dispute resolution, and improved cash flow predictability. 

As the Collections Manager highlighted, “Manually chasing invoices and then reconciling payments became simply impossible with the number of invoices we started to receive. This resulted in some customers never receiving a payment reminder or receiving a follow-up too late, and therefore, many payments were not collected on time”.

Poor Visibility into Outstanding Receivables and Disputes

Without a centralized view, Arpadis struggled to track outstanding invoices and payment disputes, making it difficult to collect overdue payments and resolve disputes efficiently. The finance team faced information silos, where crucial data was spread across multiple systems, leading to delayed follow-ups, missed disputes, and increased operational strain.

The lack of real-time insights meant collections efforts were often reactive rather than proactive, causing prolonged resolution times and unpredictability in cash flow management. Disputes remained unresolved for longer, frustrating both customers and internal teams, while overdue invoices continued to pile up. Without the ability to prioritize at-risk accounts and automate dispute resolution, financial inefficiencies became a major obstacle to growth.

Finance director commented, “We were jumping between different systems, such as Outlook, SAP, and CRMs, to find data and track payment progress. This, of course, became too time-consuming and unreliable as we began to expand and grow rapidly”.

Scalability Constraints

As Arpadis continued to expand across multiple regions and serve an increasingly diverse customer base, the company faced new challenges in scaling its accounts receivable operations. Managing collections manually was becoming unsustainable, and its existing processes lacked the flexibility and automation needed to support rapid growth.

Simple yet critical tasks, such as doing follow-ups, tracking prepayments, and ensuring seamless credit control across subsidiaries became bottlenecks, slowing down cash flow and increasing the risk of overdue payments. As transaction volumes grew, the finance team found itself trapped in a cycle of manual workarounds, struggling to maintain visibility over receivables and disputes.

Without the right tools, valuable time and resources were spent chasing payments instead of driving business expansion.

The Solution

Arapdis needed a solution that can not only automate collections but make it easy for the team to track and resolve disputes promptly. Kolleno’s diverse functionality was a perfect match for them.

With Kolleno, the team resolved the challenges by:

• Automating invoice chasing and payment reminders through AI-powered workflows
• Identifying and resolving disputes faster with real-time alerts and self-service customer portal
• Unifying communication in one place with emails, calls, promises to pay all automatically logged in collections task manager
• Integrating Kolleno with SAP

AI-Powered Workflows

Managing accounts receivable in the chemical industry presents unique challenges, from extended payment terms that strain working capital to diverse customer portfolios and ongoing cash flow pressures, all of which increase the complexity of maintaining financial stability.

With high-value transactions and complex supply chains, ensuring timely collections while maintaining strong customer relationships is critical. Kolleno has enabled Arpadis to automate, personalize, and optimize its dunning processes through AI-powered workflows.  The platform’s intelligent workflows enable dynamic segmentation of customers based on risk profiles, payment behaviors, and contract terms, ensuring that follow-ups are both timely and personalized.

Real-time Alerts and Self-Service Customer Portal

Onboarding Experience

Integrating new software into an existing ERP system can often be a complex, time-consuming challenge, but for Arpadis, Kolleno made the process surprisingly effortless.

Despite tight timelines, Kolleno fast-tracked the onboarding process for Arpadis, ensuring a swift and hassle-free setup and avoiding the usual delays and complexities that come with new software adoption.

From day one, Kolleno worked closely with Arpadis’ technical team, offering detailed API documentation, real-time guidance, and even ad-hoc support via Microsoft Teams. Instead of navigating a lengthy, complicated integration, Arpadis was up and running without disruption, allowing its finance team to focus on what matters most: efficient collections and cash flow management.

“During our onboarding period, we have felt very supported by Kolleno customer success team. They made sure that we can maximize all the benefits of the platform by guiding us through the best practices, ensuring smooth integration of our current processes into Kolleno, continuously checking in and reacting to our feedback”, Collections Manager commented. 

The Impact

The first major breakthrough? Speed. With Kolleno’s automated workflows, Arpadis resolved disputes 65% faster, eliminating roadblocks that once delayed payments and disrupted financial planning.

Then came the numbers. In just 12 months, over €100 million was collected, ensuring strong liquidity and stable working capital. Meanwhile, 109% of payments were collected within 90 days, demonstrating a more proactive, streamlined approach to cash flow management.

• More than €100M collected in the last 12 months
• Resolving disputes 65% faster
• 109% of payments collected within 90 days

And the benefits didn’t stop there. By optimizing dispute resolution, automating follow-ups, and enforcing smarter credit policies, Arpadis transformed its accounts receivable process into a scalable, data-driven system—one that supports continued growth without increasing financial risk.

With Kolleno as a strategic partner, Arpadis is now equipped to navigate industry complexities, maintain a healthy balance sheet, and focus on what matters most—driving innovation and expansion. The numbers speak for themselves, and the future looks even brighter. 

“Kolleno quickly became an integral part of  business. Now no client queries, disputes or outstanding invoices go unnoticed. With Kolleno, we can tackle any invoice volume and feel confident about future expansions”

– Finance Director at Arpadis

More About Kolleno

Kolleno brings everything you need to manage collections, payments and reconciliations in one platform. Say goodbye to the inefficiencies of switching between ERP systems, Excel, and Outlook—Kolleno brings everything together in one seamless solution. With dynamic workflows and intelligent automation, Kolleno eliminates manual tasks, helping you accelerate collections, reduce administrative workload, and improve cash flow effortlessly.

Explore why enterprises choose Kolleno.

Find out why leading companies like 1Password, AHEAD, and Rakuten place their trust in Kolleno.

Find the solution by use case:

• Collections & AR Management
• Cash Application Management
• Credit & Risk Management
• Disputes & Deductions Management
• Team & Task Management