Faster customer payment cycles, reporting transparency, time saved.
EastCoast Entertainment is the largest full-service entertainment booking agency in the country. Established in 1976, they work as a liaison between artists and companies or people involved in organizing events.
The company arranges unforgettable entertainment and produces custom events, including over 7,000 weddings, private concerts, corporate events, social galas, festivals, and more annually.
EastCoast Entertainment has 16 home offices across the country. The company structure includes agents who work with artists and presenters to handle contracts and payments and Event Support Specialists (ESS) who may work with several agents at a time.
Joe Nelson, Controller for EastCoast Entertainment, joined the organization in 2021. He is in charge of tracking financial transactions, payroll and more. Nelson’s first project was to review and purchase software to satisfy EastCoast’s contract payment needs.
Joe NelsonController
The Challenge
Before implementing PDCflow, EastCoast accepted paper checks through the mail and credit card payments over the phone – a practice that took up a significant amount of time for the accounting team.
As a national company with offices located throughout the US, EastCoast Entertainment has 35+ agents who create contracts and request payments.
They needed a software solution that:
- Is flexible enough to allow each of their agents or Event Support Specialists individual access to manage and track their own contracts and payments, no matter the location.
- Allows individual agents and other staff to review their own transactions, follow up, or resend payment requests.
- Frees up the accounting staff’s time by eliminating the need for payments over the phone.
- Can accept ACH and credit card payments.
- Has the ability to require a contract/invoice number on payment requests and reporting.
- Has the ability to integrate payments into their system of record/CRM.
- Is PCI compliant, keeps payments secure, and prevents fraud.
- Is capable of credit card surcharging and is transparent to customers about using a payment method that charges a fee.
- Provides greater transparency and visibility into payment cash flow across the entire organization.
- Has straightforward pricing.
AgentEastCoast Entertainment
The Solution
EastCoast Entertainment was able to implement Flow + Payments to meet their list of functionality requirements.
Every agent and Event Support Specialist has their own login to facilitate payment requests. Users can track Flow payment requests and get notifications on the status of each one they’ve sent.
Their customers can make payments with either a credit card or ACH (eCheck).
With PDCflow’s open APIs, EastCoast Entertainment integrated payment tracking into their in-house CRM for easy payment reconciliation and account tracking.
PCI compliance, payment security, and fraud prevention are met through a variety of PDCflow software functionality.
- All payments (both card and ACH payments) are encrypted, tokenized, and stored in a secure PDCflow vault.
- Right-party contact is verified during the Flow payment request process to ensure the intended recipient is receiving the Flow and completing the information.
- PCI compliance scope is greatly reduced since payments are no longer taken over the phone. Instead, customers enter all of their own payment data in the Flow payment request.
With Zero Cost Processing functionality, EastCoast Entertainment is able to pass along merchant credit card fees through a transparent process. Customers must agree before completing transactions.
Joe NelsonController
The Results
Using Flow for payment collection is a more transparent process for everyone involved. With Flow reporting and notifications, agents know the status of every Flow transaction they send.
PDCflow has saved a significant amount of time and account follow-up for the EastCoast accounting team. Once funds are deposited, the money is secured and staff does not have to worry about nonpayment, watch for bounced checks, or start the process all over again.
Because so many payments were coming in through mail before adopting PDCflow, the company’s accountant had to visit the post office once or twice a day to see if payments had arrived.
One accountant spent an excessive amount of time calling clients and taking credit card payments over the phone. With PDCflow, these extra tasks have been eliminated, freeing the accounting team up to do more important work.
This also helped with PCI compliance, since staff no longer needed to write down or store card data. With Flow, the cardholder inputs all card data within the Flow payment request.
Joe NelsonController
With PDCflow, EastCoast Entertainment’s agents and staff can always associate a contract number with a payment, saving time and reducing frustration for their accountants.
Previously, when paper checks were used, they often received checks in the mail without a contract number. Accounting staff would then have to investigate what contract each payment was associated with. This was very time consuming, since payees weren’t always the people who signed their contracts.
Using Flow to request and capture payments has also eliminated other payment related issues, like incorrect or partially completed checks (wrong amount, different name than what is on the contract, signature missing, etc.). By using Flow, all of the required contract information is included with a payment.
Joe NelsonController
