Fertizona's one-person credit department went from chasing paperwork to making same-day decisions

The Challenge

Shea Nieto describes his job simply: He is Fertizona's credit department. He manages accounts receivable across a family of agricultural supply companies serving farmers, golf courses, nurseries, and pest control businesses across Arizona and California, with limited support staff.

"Nuvo is a partner in performing my most important task," he says, "which is monitoring credit and understanding who I'm dealing with to assess risk. Nuvo's the one-stop shop where I can utilize the tools to make credit decisions that are going to be in the best interest of my company."

Finding that partner took nearly a decade, one underperforming vendor, and a conference presentation that caught his attention at the right moment.

When Shea joined Fertizona nine years ago, the credit application process reflected what was standard in the agricultural industry: paper forms, handwritten signatures, trade references chased by phone or email, and approvals communicated by letter. Customers filled out PDF applications and sent them to Shea directly. He pulled Experian reports, followed up on references himself, and mailed denial letters when it came to that.

The process was workable but unreliable. Shea estimates that only about 40% of applications arrived complete. The remaining 60% required at least one follow-up request, often more, for missing trade references, ambiguous address information, or the single most common omission: no requested credit limit.

"I would get applications without any indication of what size credit they were requesting," he says. "That would be the number one thing I'd have to go back and follow up on." From submission to decision, the process typically ran three to five days.

He found a partial solution at a CMA Creditscape conference in Las Vegas, where he connected with an online credit application company and moved away from PDFs. Processing times improved, and the basics of digitization helped. What he still couldn't get were business credit insights and the ability to link banking information directly to the application. When Nuvo's CEO presented at a subsequent Creditscape conference, Shea recognized what filling those gaps could mean for how he worked. He reached out, had a few conversations, and made the switch.

The Solution

Onboarding with Nuvo was tailored from the start. Shea worked through his existing application language with the Nuvo team and identified what Fertizona specifically needed that a generic platform wouldn't account for, such as adding a field for applicants to upload their AZ Form 5000 for tax-exempt purposes, and a way to indicate which company location and salesperson they'd be working with. Both were added without difficulty.

The most immediate operational change was required fields. With compulsory inputs built into the application flow, customers can no longer submit incomplete forms. The cycle of follow-up requests that had consumed a substantial share of Shea's time on every application largely stopped. "Very rarely now do I have to go back and ask for additional information," he says.

Trade references go out automatically through the platform. When applicants link their banking information, CreditSafe business credit data populates in the same dashboard. What had previously required Shea to move between Experian reports, email threads, and phone notes now arrives consolidated, ready for review. For a one-person department where every hour carries weight, having that data consolidated in one place rather than scattered across vendors meant Shea could spend his time making credit decisions rather than gathering the inputs for them.

For Fertizona's sales team, mostly crop protection specialists working out in the field, the transition required little adjustment. There is a link on the website, and directing prospective customers to it has become the default.

The Impact

Processing time down from 3-5 days to roughly 2, with same-day decisions now possible

Applications that once took three to five days to process now average around two. When trade references come in quickly and an applicant has linked their banking information, the timeline compresses further. "I've received a credit application in the middle of the night, gotten to the office, and had the trade references come in later that morning," Shea says. "I've had a decision before lunchtime." The bottleneck, when one exists, is waiting on trade reference responses rather than anything within Shea's control.

Incomplete applications dropped from 60% of submissions to a rare exception

Required fields resolved the completeness problem at the source. Applications that arrive missing critical information are now uncommon enough to be notable rather than routine, and the time Shea previously spent on follow-up requests has been redirected toward the credit analysis itself.

Richer data behind every decision

The consolidation of CreditSafe business credit data and Plaid-linked banking information into the application dashboard means Shea is working with a more complete picture than he had before.

Previously, gathering equivalent information would have required separate outreach to separate vendors, with no guarantee of a response. For a department responsible for the credit health of multiple companies operating across two states, that's a material improvement over what any single vendor could previously provide. If Nuvo disappeared tomorrow, Shea says, the workload it currently absorbs would have to fall somewhere else in the organization. "Those types of activities would probably have to be pushed off to other people in the company." For a business built around lean operations, that's a cost worth taking seriously.

When asked what he'd tell a peer who was weighing the decision, Shea is direct: "They might be surprised with how efficient they can become, and the quality of information they would get to make their credit decisions."