A crowning achievement

How adding supplemental payment solutions paid off for Benco Dental.

When Benjamin Cohen started his dental supply business in the early days of the Great Depression, his approach was simple. Each day, Cohen knocked on the doors of dental offices in and around Scranton, Pennsylvania. He worked to get to know the dentists personally, while selling them dental instruments and supplies from his briefcase.

Ninety years later, Cohen's personal approach to customer service remains at the heart of his company, Benco Dental, now the largest family-owned dental distributor in the U.S.

Led by Cohen's grandsons, the company today operates a true one-stop dental shop, offering everything from Benco-branded invisible braces and dental supplies to the latest digital x-ray equipment and computer-aided systems for producing crowns, inlays and other restorative dental treatments. Cohen's door-to-door sales method has been replaced with a long-tenured team of regional sales reps, an online marketplace and five distribution centers, which together serve thousands of dental practices nationwide.

What continues to set the company apart, explained Kristin Boyd, the company's Accounts Payable (AP) Manager, is its commitment to providing support, services and solutions that address individual customer needs. "We are known for our VIP treatment, inviting dentists to our facilities to try out new equipment for themselves," she said. "These are major investments, and what works in one dental practice may not work in another."

One size does NOT fit all.

"This personalized approach extends to other faces of Benco Dental's business," said Boyd. That includes the way the company pays its hundreds of suppliers.

For most of the company's history, Benco Dental paid invoices primarily by check. That changed in 2013 when the company's primary bank introduced Benco Dental to a virtual credit card program that gave suppliers the option of being paid with a one-time-use electronic card. Not only would the card program reduce the postage, paper and administrative costs associated with issuing checks, it would provide a revenue share to Benco Dental on payments made through the program.

The company eagerly signed on to the virtual credit card program, and suppliers began to enroll. But the appeal of the one-size-fits-all electronic solution was not universal, especially among suppliers not set up for card payments or that balked at the fees associated with card acceptance, according to Boyd.

"Then, in 2023, Commerce Bank approached us with the idea of adding its AP card program to supplement our existing program," Boyd said. "Adding a second AP card program wasn't something we were thinking about."

But Commerce's virtual credit card program (AP card) offered something that Benco Dental's original program lacked - flexibility. "Commerce offers multiple payment options, which made it possible for us to pay more suppliers the way they preferred," Boyd explained.

Benco Dental was already familiar with Commerce, having worked with the bank previously on a Benco Dental-branded Business Credit Card. "After meeting with Commerce to discuss the AP card, we decided the bank would be a good business partner, and we went straight to program launch," said Boyd. "We figured we had nothing to lose."

The kick-off for the new AP card program took place in the final weeks of December 2023. Vendor enrollment began a month later when Benco Dental's AP department provided Commerce with a payment file for suppliers that had not enrolled in the existing program. By early March 2024, the new CommercePayments® supplemental AP card program was live.

"I was surprised by how fast it all happened," said Boyd. "But Commerce knew what they were doing, and they helped us work through it."

How the supplemental program works.

Today, new suppliers are invited initially to enroll in Benco Dental's original AP card program. Those that decline are sent to the Commerce in-house enrollment team.

"Commerce works individually with suppliers that may be reluctant to enroll, looking for ways to encourage them to participate," said Boyd. That may involve renegotiating the card program's terms or offering other payment options.

In one case, a large shipping company with a multi-million-dollar corporate account had declined to accept a one-time use virtual card. Instead, it required individual payments to be made manually through the company's online payment portal.

"The supplier didn't make it easy," recalled Boyd. "But Commerce was patient and persistent, and ultimately made it possible for the CommercePayments team to make payments using its ControlPay Advanced solution."

The results.

"Adding a supplemental AP card program has paid multiple dividends," said Boyd.

In the first six months after going live, Commerce enrolled more than 100 + suppliers in their supplemental payment program - more than double the number expected - with new suppliers added each week. During that period, Benco Dental's revenue share doubled, with the supplemental program's revenue exceeding original projections by more than 20%.

"The AP card program also has a positive impact on Benco's cash flow," said Boyd. Suppliers that enroll gain access to their funds via an email sent on the payment due date. "That means we can hold on to our funds longer," she said. "This helps both our cash flow and working assets, which we track closely."

Today, Benco Dental pays approximately 20% of its supplier invoices by check, down significantly from before the supplemental program launched in March 2024.

"Taking on a second AP card program was absolutely worth it, thanks to Commerce's hard work," said Boyd.

"Commerce assigned a full team to our account," she added. "The implementation team was fantastic to get us up and running so quickly and the enrollment team does a great job of identifying and enrolling suppliers. Still today, they remind us regularly to send new supplier files so they can set them up in the program and the program can continue to grow."

"Everyone at Commerce is attentive and helpful," Boyd said. "Their approach to service reminds me of ours."

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