Napa Baking Gives Customers a Modern Way to Pay
Adding Wholesail to FlexiBake streamlines payments and provides the visibility needed to better manage payment terms
Mari Baker says Napa Baking’s accounts receivable is the best it’s ever been – and she credits Wholesail for the change. By adding Wholesail to FlexiBake, Napa Baking’s customers have an easy way to pay.
“Our customers see their bills, and they just pay them,” Mari said. “I’m not waiting on checks, and they aren’t missing invoices.”
Since she started at Napa Baking in 2022, Mari has been impressed with how well FlexiBake understands the day-to-day realities of running a bakery. At her previous job, the bakery’s ERP required time-consuming, manual processes. With FlexiBake, Napa Baking can manage inventory and streamline production from start to finish, creating a smoother and more efficient operation.
As an add-on to FlexiBake, Wholesail takes things even further by giving the restaurants and delis Napa Baking serves a modern, “2026” way to pay their invoices.
“Wholesail made collecting payments a whole lot easier.”
“Our customers were ready for it,” Mari said. “They were excited to pay online and access their invoices, and they took to it really fast. We didn’t see much hesitation at all.” That’s a big win for Mari, who says she’s too busy to spend time chasing payments.
With Wholesail, she’s also no longer “flying blind” when it comes to offering payment terms, thanks to Lighthouse – Wholesail’s anonymous exchange of buyer payment history for the food and beverage industry.
“It’s really helpful to see how customers pay their other vendors and their daily bank balance,” she said. “That way, we know when to keep payment terms on a tighter schedule.”
“If you’re wanting to get paid faster and have it be easier to reconcile AR, Wholesail is definitely the way to go.”
Napa Baking added Wholesail to FlexiBake. Now, payments are easy for customers and Mari has peace of mind when extending payment terms to new customers.
Make paying invoices fast, simple, and intuitive.
Before Wholesail, Mari printed invoices manually and waited on customers to send checks. Now her customers have access to Wholesail’s online portal where they can pay via credit card or ACH.
“Most people were excited to be able to pay online and look at their invoices, and I think they were ready for it.”
Boost payment speed and save time.
In less than six months, payments made through Wholesail started coming in on average five days faster than other payment methods and continue to come in faster as time goes on. And, Wholesail has significantly cut down on the number of checks Mari has to manually process.
“It’s really nice because when a customer pays, then it just goes right into FlexiBake. I don’t have to enter that payment myself, and I don’t have to clear the invoice. It just does it automatically which saves me a lot of time. When I was processing checks and applying each check to each customer – sometimes I would get a stack of like 50 to 100 checks – it’s time consuming.”
Automate statements, streamline collections, and improve customer communication.
Mari used to send manual statements twice per month, which meant she had to go into each of their 350 customer accounts to send. Once sent, there wasn’t a way to see if customers had received or opened the statement. Following up on past due or skipped invoices wasn’t easy, either.
“It’s so nice in Wholesail that I can see that my email was sent and that it was opened or if the email bounced. It’s so much easier for me to know who got what or if they got my message.”
Onboard new customers and evaluate credit faster and more efficiently.
Mari said Napa Baking was “flying blind” when adding new customers and extending payment terms. Wholesail’s new customer form replaced emailing PDF credit applications to prospects. And with Lighthouse, she can see a customer’s bank balance in real time and how they pay other vendors.
“My job has gotten a lot easier now that I’m able to send a link to the credit app. And seeing a prospect’s Lighthouse score tells me whether we need to keep someone on a tight leash, payment-wise. It’s interesting to notice that among our current customers, the ones that aren’t the best at paying us are also not the best at paying their other people.”
Reclaim time and save money for what matters most.
Wholesail allows Napa Baking to seamlessly pass along credit card fees to its customers, which is saving the business money they can allocate toward their expansion into frozen orders for grocery stores. The time Mari saves is allowing her to focus on other aspects of the business – and she’s finding better work/life balance because her vacations don’t need to revolve around producing manual statements.
“I just shared that in just six months, we saved $8,000 with my boss, and he was really happy about that. And I’m excited to be able to take vacations anytime without having to plan around sending our statements!”