EHPlabs lets Airwallex do the heavy lifting with finance operations

EHPlabs is a leading sports nutrition brand, beloved for their high-quality and science-backed supplements that have helped millions of people across the world live healthier lives. Established in 2012, this retail and wholesale success story has since gone from strength-to-strength. 

Joining the company in 2021, Finance Manager Hamish Hickmott has seen the meteoric growth of their customer base and team. With revenue tripling and headcount doubling over the past three years, Hamish was seeking a financial operations solution that could match EHPlabs’ agility. 

Outgrowing traditional solutions

EHPlabs is a dynamic company with international operations and customer bases. Unfortunately, their previous bricks and mortar bank wasn’t able to meet these global demands. 

“The vast majority of our products are produced out of the US. So we obviously have to pay all of our suppliers in USD, but we're not necessarily collecting in USD,” says Hamish.

“Before we started using Airwallex, we were using the traditional brick and mortar bank to do the conversion and they take quite a hefty fee. We weren't getting interbank rates or anything like that, and a lot of them will whack on at least 3% on top of that.”

Even with local entities, moving money around the world was sluggish and costly. EHPlabs were being charged significant amounts for inefficient money movement.

“It tended to be a lot slower and just more difficult to move funds out to our own entities in different countries. So one of the key things we wanted was to get conversions done quickly and at a low cost, so that we're not spending huge amounts just to move money around.”

Swamped with credit card fees

Prior to using Airwallex, EHPlabs were also using a traditional credit card provider for several of their outgoings. Especially when it came to paying for digital marketing, the majority of which is billed in USD, the fees and costs were piling up.

“Whenever we were purchasing anything in a foreign currency, they were taking a clip on the FX rate they’d give us plus they were adding a commission fee. So we were losing about 5 or 6% on all of our credit card spend.” 

“When we actually worked it out we were paying just huge amounts a month in what I saw as unnecessary conversion fees and commissions.”

Since coming onboard with Airwallex and taking advantage of our competitive FX rates and Global Account, these costs have been greatly reduced. In fact, the savings hit five figures a month.

Hamish Hickmott

Finance Manager, EHPlabs

“I'd say we're probably saving between $20k and $30k a month across the transfers that we do within our own entities as well as all the payments we put through on the credit cards.”

Embracing Airwallex’s advanced (but easy-to-use) tools

Finance operations are often so much more complicated than they need to be. Our tools are purpose-built for ease of use, even with their advanced functionality. 

“I'd probably say another big thing that really attracted us to Airwallex is just the ease of the system,” says Hamish.

“It’s not like some of these foreign banking portals where it'll take you 20 minutes just to figure out how to make a payment. The rest of my team find it really easy to understand as well.” 

Previously, Hamish’s team would have to move money to their local accounts to pay their local suppliers. Now this can all be done from one centralised Global Account.

“We don’t have to go ‘Oh, we've got a bill in Canada to pay. We need to make sure we’ve got funds and our Canadian account.’ We can just do any of that out of our Airwallex accounts.”

This ease of use has meant that responsibilities can be more easily distributed amongst the team, and everyone’s time can be saved.

“Being able to get the team all using Airwallex to make payments, it’s very easy. We're not reliant on just one person who knows how to use that banking portal.”

Solving unique problems with streamlined tools

A huge time suck for Hamish’s team prior to using Airwallex was making monthly payments to the ambassadors that make up a core part of their marketing strategy.

“We engage with a lot of influencers and athletes. And so every month, obviously we make commission payments to them.”

“Now, historically, when we actually had to pay them at the end of the month that would be about a two day process with going and doing all the calculations, then having to go into all the different banking portals and paying them out and in their local currency.

Hamish Hickmott

Finance Manager, EHPlabs

“Now that we use Airwallex, we use the Batch Payments feature where we can pay out in any currency to any bank account. So that alone I'd say I would save at least two to three days a month.”

With less work for the team and faster payments for their influencers, it’s a win-win scenario that can be easily scaled.

“So we just collect the bank details from the influencers in the correct format and then it’s literally just a copy/paste into our batch payment templates and then an upload. So it’s really simple, whether we're paying 10 people or 1000 people - it's the same number of clicks.”

Account managers that are on your team

When you’re working with Airwallex, you can rely on our expert local account managers. We’re cheering on your business ambitions, and looking for better solutions for you every day. EHPlabs is proudly supported by one of our Sydney-based Account Managers.

“Our account manager has been really great in onboarding us. He understands what we do as a business, and it’s great just having someone that we can rely on and we know will actually reply to us in a timely manner.”

“With a lot of the brick and mortar banks, you might email them when you have an issue with the payment, it'll take them days to get back to you and that leads to a lot of frustration on our side.”

“Whereas I'd say with Airwallex, if we have an issue, we'll just go out to our account manager and he’ll escalate it internally and we'll get a response back within a few hours. 

Hamish Hickmott

Finance Manager, EHPlabs

“Another great thing that Jon does is give us a better awareness of the entire product offering that Airwallex has. It's not just banking. It's not just collecting money and paying it out. It's all the other products that they have on the horizon.”

“He works with us to see if new products are suitable for us, explaining what they do and what the implementation process would be. So it’s not necessarily just a one stop; we just need to collect money, pay it out. It's everything else that Airwallex is building and how we can take advantage of that for our business.”

What challenges could we solve for you?

If you’re curious about how you could take advantage of Airwallex’s incredible tools and powerful infrastructure, why not reach out and see what we can do for your specific situation?

“I would definitely say just get in touch with the Airwallex team and have that discussion around your business objectives and your shorter or longer term goals in terms of global expansion?”

“Airwallex is a product that's great for global businesses, and so if you are a global business or you're looking at expanding globally, just get in touch and find out what products may be right for you. Especially when, for Australian businesses, you're quite restricted with the brick and mortar bank as well. There's just a lot that you wouldn't be aware of unless you have those conversations.”

Get your financial operations working at peak performance. Learn more about Airwallex’s groundbreaking product suite, talk to our sales team, or get started by signing up for a free account now. 

Disclaimer: The information contained herein is factual information only and is not intended to imply any recommendation or opinion about a financial product.