What’s in a name? For Los Angeles-based record label Hopeless Records, it turns out, a lot. “Hopeless” embodies a culture of positivity, independence, resilience, and a whole lot of gumption. In fact, in the label’s own words, “Yup, we’re Hopeless, but we’re not gonna let that stop us.”
So, it’s fitting that when the label’s bank shifted its payment terms, raising fees for international wires and ACH payments and cutting into margins, the Hopeless team decided to take their business elsewhere.
“When I was first considering Veem, we had a meeting with our bank people. They told us they wanted to start charging for outgoing wire transfers and ACHs. They never charged before. That didn’t make sense. It was great timing to have found Veem,” recalled Hopeless CFO Al Person.
And as Veem entered the picture, Person quickly saw new areas of opportunity. With regular royalty payments going out to upwards of 500 payees, batch payments played a critical role in making the switch.
“Batch processing was the biggest issue,” recalled Person. “I had the conversation with Veem, and they explained the batch processing, and how we could put all of those in one transaction file.”
With complicated calculations for royalties coming from everything from vinyl album sales to concert tickets to Spotify plays, Person’s team spends countless hours working through data to calculate totals for each royalty payout. With an already intense accounts payable process, the last thing the label needed was to have the payment transaction itself take up more time, and Veem Mass Pay offered a way to streamline.
“Being able to put it all in one transaction file saved me days of work that it used to take to get a royalty run processed,” Person shared.
What’s more, as a global business, many of Hopeless’ payees operate outside the U.S. Because making international payments can be a costly endeavor, finding a payments partner who can help minimize expenses makes a significant impact on the company’s bottom line. Veem helped Hopeless to not only make the royalty payment process more efficient, but more cost effective as well.
“For the international payments, it’s even more important that we had Veem available as the banks started realizing, ‘We’re not making interest anymore, because the interest rates are so low, we’ve got to do fee-based income.’ Veem is circumventing that process a bit and making it much more affordable to do international transactions.”
As a thriving organization, Hopeless Records is not one to rest on their laurels; they seek continuous improvement. That mindset drives Person to explore options for using Veem in new ways. For example, Person pointed out that conducting batch payments for weekly bill payments could save the company at least 30 minutes per week and employing card functionality may allow for more streamlined payment reconciliation. “I feel like I’m using Veem, and there’s more I could be doing,” Person shared. “They’ve done a great job developing the tools.”
With a spirit of resilience at its core, Hopeless Records plans to continue to grow and evolve to meet the needs of its artists and their fans well into the future. By the team’s own account, the label has yet to peak and realize its full potential. More opportunity awaits, and they plan to take Veem along for the ride. “I can tell it’s a growing service,” concluded Person. “I’m really happy with Veem.
Veem helps businesses save time and optimize cash flow by simplifying the way they send and receive payments domestically and internationally. Trusted by more than 800,000 users in over 100 countries, Veem uncomplicates the end-to-end AP/AR process with seamless integrations to leading accounting software, real-time tracking on payments and cost-effective, flexible payment options. Now businesses have the power to pay how they prefer and eliminate friction with customers to get paid faster. For more information visit veem.com.
Veem is a global payments network built for businesses. We began in 2014 with the intention of making international money transfers as simple as purchasing a cup of coffee. Since then, we’ve revolutionized the way businesses pay and get paid around the world by empowering owners, accountants, and financial professionals to take control over their payment processes. We level the playing field by providing enterprise-level financial tools and negotiating power to the small businesses who need it most.