When you make a product the whole world needs but have a two-person finance function, every hour spent on administration is an hour taken away from growth. For NOAQ, embedding payments directly into Monitor – powered by Open Payments – turned that equation around.
“We specialise in mobile flood protection,” explains Claes Hegardt, CFO at NOAQ. “We believe the global potential is enormous. Flooding affects more and more regions, and demand is increasing.”
The company is growing quickly. In 2024, NOAQ nearly doubled its revenue, and production units are planned for India and the USA to support international demand. But expanding internationally also introduces new operational complexity – especially when it comes to payments.
From fragmented systems to a scalable financial setup
For many years, NOAQ's financial operations were relatively simple.
“In the beginning, I handled the entire finance function myself,” says Ann Blanche-Sahlqvist, Finance Director at NOAQ. “But as we started expanding internationally, we realised we needed both stronger systems and a clearer structure.”
Previously, orders, accounting and payments were handled in separate environments. The setup required more manual work and made it difficult to scale.
“We often had to solve things manually, and it simply wasn't built for the level of international activity we were starting to see,” Ann explains.
When NOAQ decided to modernise its financial infrastructure they wanted a system that could support future growth, and chose Monitor ERP.
“It's a system we can grow into,” Claes says. “Even if we don't use every function today, we know the platform can support where we're heading.”
Payments from a single account, in any currency
NOAQ sells primarily in euros and Swedish kronor, and works with suppliers across Europe, India and the United States. Managing foreign payments traditionally required multiple currency accounts and created friction around exchange rates.
"Before, we'd sometimes be chasing a hundred kronor in exchange rate differences with customers, it created unnecessary work for everyone, but you still had to deal with it,” Ann says.
Today, all supplier invoices are sent directly from Monitor via Open Payments, and Open Payments handles the currency conversion and settlement.
“We send all supplier payments through Open Payments and receive the reconciliation back to our Swedish account,” she explains. “We only have one account – in Swedish kronor.”
Automation that supports growth
NOAQ currently employs 14 people and works with distributors in around 50 countries. With ambitious growth targets ahead, the finance function needs to remain efficient. But rather than expanding the finance team proportionally, the company relies on automation within its ERP workflows.
“The advantage of this setup is that Ann and I can handle a lot more ourselves,” Claes explains. “Even as the company grows, we don't necessarily need to hire more people just to manage the financial administration.”
For Ann, the real shift has been in how much of the day-to-day financial work now runs itself. Bank transactions flow directly into Monitor via the banking integration, ready to be matched and distributed. VAT reports guide her through the process step by step – flagging anomalies before they become problems. When a service is purchased from the US, the right account code and VAT treatment are already present.
“You don't have to go outside the system to manage things,” Ann says. “Everything is inside Monitor, which makes the work much smoother.”
Both Ann and Claes single out the responsiveness of Open Payments' support as something that has made a real difference – particularly during the initial setup period, when switching both ERP and bank in the same month inevitably generated questions.
"When something goes wrong – and naturally things have gone wrong along the way – Open Payments fixes it," Ann says. "You fire off an email and get back: okay, I'll take that and come back to you. And they do."
Preparing the company for global scale
For Ann, who has watched NOAQ evolve from a small organisation to an international business, the shift in what a finance function can do is striking: "The finance role is changing. You don't need to see the invoices anymore – they just flow into the system. The work is still there, but it's different work. And with the right tools, two people can handle a lot."
As NOAQ continues expanding internationally, the financial infrastructure implemented today is expected to support the next stage of growth.
“The plan is that Monitor and Open Payments will grow with us,” Claes says. “And that foundation is already in place.”
