With Aurum, we found the perfect match for our reconciliation first time.

As a startup using AI to motor high-quality car insurance, Peppercorn harbours ambitions to scale quickly. Their finance team is therefore prepared for inevitably dealing with more transactions on a daily basis as they grow. 

However, as disruptive innovators in the insurtech space using cutting-edge conversational AI to change the whole car insurance experience, they are determined to not let manual processes and wasted time be part of the high-volumes which they will come to experience in the future. After all, as an organisation that promotes the use of AI to drive leaner operational costs, Peppercorn wants to ensure that their internal processes are aligned with their values.

That's why they chose to work with Aurum from day one to automate their reconciliations. Find out how Peppercorn’s trust has been repaid as they continually go from strength to strength with Aurum by their side:

“Being a new company working with various third parties, we needed to put our trust in something that would work.” That was the position of Jade Riggs, Finance Manager at Peppercorn and responsible for choosing their reconciliation partner in 2022. Rightly, she appreciated the magnitude of such a responsibility – with so many transactions happening daily, reconciliation is the crux of the insurance industry.

“High motivation, high automation is in our DNA, and Aurum embodies that.”

Andrew Sheen, Head of Finance
Peppercorn

As a result, Jade and Peppercorn's reconciliation strategy was always going to be based on automation. This would ensure that they could scale, reduce errors and operate in a way conducive to various systems. It was also non-negotiable because of Peppercorn's ethos as a tech-first, entirely online, completely remote company – whoever they worked with had to match their forward-thinking principles.

With these parameters in place, Jade began investigating reconciliation software that would support Peppercorn's ambitions. Many demos ensued with various capabilities and price tags; however, Aurum hit the sweet spot. Despite not being the most expensive, Aurum offered technical nous and greater flexibility, which other companies couldn't promise. However, what sold Aurum to Jade and her Head of Finance, Andrew Sheen, was Aurum's experience: “Nearly 20 years in the reconciliation industry as a company spoke volumes, and the individuals at Aurum were equally impressive during demos and consultancy calls.” As a business just starting out, creating new systems and working with providers for the first time, Aurum's competency and capabilities were pivotal for Peppercorn – they needed assurance that their reconciliation partner could create a solution that matched their vision despite not possessing any legacy data at the time.

Assurance was what Aurum's knowledge gave Peppercorn before implementation, and now – after operating for nine months – it is delivering clear benefits for Jade and her peers: “The signs were all there from when we went live and had direct support from the team at Aurum, but since then, things have just got better.” For instance, since going live, Peppercorn has experienced:

• Bespoke scripts for data enhancement so that 3,000 individual transactions are automatically labelled and reconciled to match a corresponding, single bulk payment
• A compact, simple and quick reconciliation process, despite them having grown from managing hundreds of policies to 15,000

With Aurum’s team always on hand to develop what Peppercorn requires, they have focused heavily on priorities and saved 4 hours per month when reconciling bulk payments, an invaluable amount of time for a small team within the insurance industry. Moreover, since they are a new firm, proving reliable is pivotal to fostering stronger relationships with their partners. Again, the speed of Aurum proves significant here. Not only does it ensure that they can make payments on time, but they also achieve them with complete accuracy thanks to having all their data reconciled and stored in one place.

“Our main feeling with Aurum was that they’re a like-minded partner and share the same values as us. That’s why we chose Aurum, and it has since been evidenced by how well we have worked together.”

Jade Riggs, Finance Manager
Peppercorn

“Ultimately, Aurum’s innate willingness to collaborate on whatever we need and jump on a call whenever we have a problem means that we fortunately found the perfect match for our reconciliation first time.” For Jade, Andrew, and the rest of Peppercorn, this has generated even more trust in Aurum, helping them get closer to their ultimate aim of servicing their own books and providing services for other insurers too. As always, Aurum will be ready to adapt and scale for Peppercorn when that moment comes.

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