ClearDox Helps Automate 95% of Settlement Processing for StoneX Commodity Solutions

As one of the largest commodity brokerage firms in the United States, StoneX Commodity Solutions facilitates the buying and movement of grain and oilseed across five continents. To ensure the most efficient operations, the digitization and automation of key processes has been a cornerstone of their strategy.  

Before engaging with ClearDox, StoneX Commodity Solutions employees were manually entering critical details of each elevator statement of receipt into its ETRM system. These statements included key data elements required for payment to the farmer. 

The process was time-consuming, error-prone, and required extensive industry knowledge to understand the details, including quality measurements related to wheat, corn and soy products being traded. During peak seasons, it was easy for a backlog to occur, causing payment delays and farmer dissatisfaction. Compounding this issue was that the grain elevators were often slow in sending the receipts to StoneX Commodity Solutions. 

The company recognized it needed a digital solution that would simplify statement processing and allow for faster automated settlement. Additionally, they wanted to drive process efficiencies, including the ability to reallocate their skilled resources to other initiatives. Ultimately, StoneX Commodity Solutions was looking for more effective ways to scale the business as it grew, while better servicing their critical farmer ecosystem.

StoneX Commodity Solutions chose ClearDox for its flexibility in handling a wide array of commodities and intelligent machine-trained processes. This commodity focused approach ensured StoneX Commodity Solutions executives and team members were not wasting time educating staff on what is unique in each commodity. Instead, they could focus on the business issues at hand.

The team also benefited from the intuitive user interface and a business dashboard built around processing orders, easily seeing which statements needed personal attention while the others were automatically processed.

With ClearDox, StoneX Commodity Solutions could track metrics related to:

• Operational costs per invoice to identify opportunities for gaining scale as the business grows.
• Resource optimization, where their highest skilled employees focused on business objectives instead of manual data entry.
• Digitization, which allowed StoneX to process and settle high volumes of invoices more quickly than any manual process could.
• Data accuracy of all line-item detail to prevent over- or underpayments.
• Visibility that displays line items as “green” or automatically reconciled, “yellow” or needing validation, and “red” or rejected. This reduces the level of staff intervention and involvement.
• Transparency, and knowing the value, location, and status of each settlement.

StoneX Commodity Solutions also highlights ClearDox’s industry knowledge as a significant benefit. The ClearDox team stepped in and added value right away because of their industry best practice expertise. StoneX Commodity Solutions employees were able to continue business as usual while the ClearDox team managed implementation.

This success has inspired StoneX Commodity Solutions leadership to look at future expansion into other products within the industry, such as biodiesel feedstocks.