Hanergy
The Client
Hanergy Solar UK was the UK arm of Hanergy Holding Group which is a clean energy company and the world’s leading thin-film solar power company.
The Problem:
Although the company operated in the UK, all payments to suppliers etc had to be approved and executed at HQ in Beijing.
Each day the UK team sent a spreadsheet to Beijing. They would make the payments, update the spreadsheet and send it back.
This led to frequent mistakes:
- Multiple payments to the same entity
- Missed payments to suppliers
The impact on the company was:
- Loss of reputation with suppliers
- Subcontractors stopping work on customers
- Low staff morale
The Solution
Due to Chinas great Firewall, options were limited.
The company’s main systems were based on FileMaker and its web publishing engine was perfect to provide the effective communication the Finance Team needed.
Filemaker was therefore used to build the new solution.
There were three views to the same information (Uk View, Beijing View and an admin view) each of which were restricted to what fields were accessible.
Automatic colour coding and filtering meant that everyone was immediately aware of deadlines, urgent payments, priorities etc
The Outcome
Following implementation, all the issues were eliminated:
- Payments were made on time
- No more overpayments
- No more missed payments
- Increase confidence from staff as the tool provided transparency