Heyday is a popular skincare company with locations in New York and California. After their doors first opened in 2015, Heyday experienced quick growth with a $3mm seed round followed shortly after by an $8mm Series A.
Maxwell Bennett, Operations Manager, is responsible for overseeing operations at the company, focusing on all aspects of purchasing and procurement in addition to other organizational and HR-related roles.
Choosing the right partner.
We wanted to cut back on spending… as well as having one go-to place.
By late 2017, it became apparent to Heyday that a scalable system was needed to manage increasingly complicated operations and finance processes. Heyday needed something that could better handle and visualize the multitude of invoices the company was receiving. “We used Google Sheets to track spending by location, and at that time we only were two locations,” Maxwell recalls, “We would submit the sheets to the CEO and the he would cross-check the credit card statements and the sheets.”
In evaluating systems, Heyday needed a partner that would assist with the invoice volume in addition to providing value on the purchasing and operations side. “We first looked at invoice management platforms,” Max describes, “However, the main deciding factor for Negotiatus came from us spending a lot on disposable goods like office supplies. We wanted to cut back on spending through the sourcing and substitution program and wanted one go-to place instead of having all of our purchasing managers manage a login for Amazon, WB Mason, Webstaurant and all the other places we order from.”
Seamless ordering for both supplies and retail.
First and foremost, it is a huge time saver.
Heyday immediately benefited from consolidated ordering across all their vendors ranging from their office and cleaning supplies to retail. “First and foremost, it is a huge time saver,” Maxwell says, “Going to one place for all the treatment supplies and office supplies – everyone knows exactly where to go. For retail alone, we have products from 10 different vendors, so instead of filling out order forms for each vendor for each location we can go to one place. Without Negotiatus it would have taken us three days to place all of our orders and now it takes just a couple hours.”
Controlling and adding to an approved product catalog was simple: “There are so many ways to link vendors and products… I love using the Chrome extension to add products on the fly. I can be on Amazon and just press the Negotiatus button to add a product right to my catalog or add it directly to my Negotiatus cart right there. And then it’s in Negotiatus and ready to order whenever we need it again.”
Visibility and organization.
It’s amazing for organization.
To better optimize processes internally, Maxwell and his team took advantage of Negotiatus’ real-time analytics: “Being able to see on the ‘Analytics’ page the breakdown by Cost Center, filter month to month or pay period to pay period, and look at our spend by location is so handy. Seeing the top products we spend money on is so helpful as well.”
Negotiatus also increased accountability within Heyday and made it easy to track down any purchases. “I am able to go into ‘Completed Orders’ and search for that one cabinet someone bought in February from Ikea, and I can easily look at the date, location, and who purchased it to quickly get to the bottom of any issue.”
“It’s amazing for organization,” Maxwell summarizes, “To see everyone’s orders in one place – to see and categorize our spend data – it is really great.”