IT
TECHNOLOGY TO EASE PAYMENT PROCESS PAIN FOR MERCHANTS
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huge amount of time and effort is spent by merchants chasing down payments and checking on payment schedules with their customers. All that time and effort comes at a cost to the bottom line, compressing net margins, by using outdated processes that take personnel away from other, more lucrative tasks. What if there was a way of automating that process, leaving merchants free to concentrate on being merchants? Enter Ontik, a technology company that aims to ease that pain and solve the challenge of the net margin compression of the last few years. The UK’s £100bn+ builders merchant industry still relies on spreadsheets, notepads, and ERP exports. Up to 50% of payments arrive late, and majority of a credit controller’s time is spent chasing invoices. Add onto that the fact that 1%–2.5% of revenue is lost to card processing fees, and that any disputes or queries about the invoice delay cash flow and are difficult to resolve without centralisation. Ontik CEO Chris Smith co-founded the company with his brother – the pair have a track record in setting up and selling technology companies – and had an insight into the complexities of the merchanting sector via their father, a plumber. He says: “If you look at builders merchanting there is a tonne of processes, all very manual, all very costly and inefficient. Net margins have shrunk because of inflation, plus interest rate rises have left the industry in a bit of a mess. We know that the majority of building industry tradesmen view their builders or plumbers’ merchant as a form of banker lending them money via trade credit. A plumber goes into a plumber’s merchant, takes £10,000 of products off the shelf and doesn’t have to pay for them until much later, and probably not until they have been chased a few times by the merchant.” That’s been the way the industry has worked for many years, but, even though the sector has moved on in terms of technology, the processes behind offering trade credit tend to be manual, outdated and inefficient. Smith says: “It’s still a glorified IOU on a piece of paper. It’s a very inefficient process, and there is loads of leakage. Plus, tracking the customers takes time and effort. Turning orders into quotes and chasing payments down can take time and effort that could
A way of automating manual, inefficient processes to increase merchants’ margins and business efficiency? Fiona Russell Horne investigates Ontik.
more usefully be spent on other things.” Ontik is a payment & operating platform built for builders merchants. It automates the order-to-cash process — enabling merchants to chase up hundreds of outstanding payments in just a couple of clicks, reduce manual reconciliation and reporting, cutting down on late payments and card processing fees. Smith says: “This system frees up credit control teams to focus where they’re needed most— building relationships, resolving issues, and driving cash flow.”
The Ontik platform sits on top of a merchant’s existing ERP, Smith describes the set-up as “ERP-agnostic”, so it works with systems from software suppliers such as Intact, Merlin and others, and it’s scalable across 3,000+ branches in the UK.
Ontik provides a live aged debt dashboard, custom-branded payment links via email and SMS, a simple, easy way of escalating things for overdue accounts, and the invoice dispute resolution is built into the payment flow.
June 2025
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net
From the customer’s point of view, the payment link that the merchant send via Ontik acts as a smart portal, giving customers access to real-time account overviews including open balances and digital statements, as well as their live credit limit usage, so they know exactly how much headroom they have. They don’t need to spend time chasing down paperwork if they have a query, as they can just raise this directly from the link, as there’s a direct line of communication with credit control—no phone calls are needed. The payment options are instant, and are embedded so they are secure. Smith says: “Trade credit is one of the last major B2B workflows yet to be digitised. Ontik is doing for merchanting what Klarna and Stripe did for ecommerce. We’re not just sending payment links—we’re fixing how merchants manage cash, build trust with customers, and get paid on time.” Among the merchants using Ontik are: Collier & Catchpole, Croxley Plumbing Supplies, FORT Builders Merchants, Peppards, Fielden Factors, GH Brooks and Henshaws. “Ontik has been a game-changer for us,” Henshaws managing director Adrian Shelley says. ”It takes the hassle and risk out of payments while giving our customers a seamless experience. Their focus on our industry means everything feels built for us — it’s rare to find a tech partner who gets it so right.” BMJ
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