Wendy Huijs - Van den Ham of Little Trophy about Combidesk

"I started out as a textile designer, but am now also an entrepreneur, bookkeeper and ICT expert," laughs Wendy Huijs - Van den Ham. In 2017, she started up her company, Little Trophy. Her scarves and other artisanal fashion & home accessories were in several boutiques in the Netherlands. From day 1, she had a website, but paid virtually no attention to it. Until she was at a trade fair in Frankfurt in January 2020: "I saw face masks. Disinfecting materials. And that things weren't going well, so I started acting on that."

"Oh dear, I thought in March. My outlets were closed, and all I had left was a three-year-old webshop that I had never really paid attention to. I saw that many clothing brands were going with face masks, but I myself had my doubts: you can't just do something like that, can you?" The coronavirus crisis gave Wendy an extra boost; now she sells sheer, luxury face masks with attention to detail, mankind and the environment to customers all over Europe. How does Wendy manage to run a successful online business without any knowledge of ICT or bookkeeping? A matter of using the right software. Here's how she does it.

Don't start small, start offline

"I am old school when it comes to retail: you establish a brand, then find outlets to increase brand awareness, and let the boutiques do their work. I was also told by people in the industry - and even during my RVO (Netherlands Enterprise Agency) international business coaching programme - to focus on finding outlets. Still, I had a webshop from day 1, because I could see that this was the way of the future."

The lockdown soon followed after Wendy's return to the Netherlands from visiting Frankfurt. "I was just starting to grow nicely, with my scarves in boutiques in the south and east of the country. I thought, 'oops, what now?'"

New business: sheer, luxury face masks

By April, her first face masks were ready. The fabric, which is formaldehyde-free, is Dutch, and is decorated with water-based ink. The face masks are a piece of 'pure luxury', as Wendy calls them: "You and I want to be paid properly for what we do. We find this quite normal. In the clothing industry, however, this is far from always the case. There's always someone who isn't getting enough for something. However, I myself don't want to be a part of that. To make the world a better place, I want to be sure that my product is right. I call it pure luxury: beautiful fabrics with a good story, a product with an idea behind it, which has been made with care and attention. I work with European suppliers, and the fabrics are also European. The face masks are even 100% Dutch."

And she now sells these face masks through the previously forgotten webshop: "The idea was that I would add five outlets to my portfolio every year. However, I have given up on that idea. Now the focus is on my webshop. The outlets come second."

Half an ICT expert

This webshop doesn't run itself by itself: "I've become half an ICT expert, dude," jokes Wendy. "I learned what SEO is. How to create product categories. I have to think about how people search, so that I set up my webshop logically. I have to think about what my customers want to see, so I can put up the right photos. You don't want to know how much work goes into it! And I do everything myself."

"I also feel that only the best is good enough for my customers. That's why I started up my business in the first place. So why should I settle for less when it comes to my own business? I did a lot of research, and eventually opted for a webshop with Lightspeed. Not entirely coincidentally, as this is also a locally-made product."

And half a bookkeeper

Wendy worked with a bookkeeper before the coronavirus crisis. She would send in her receipts and invoices, email these to the bookkeeper, and get a message back saying what she had to pay to the Tax and Customs Administration. "Everything was genuinely all a mystery to me. I did check my bank statements, whether everything was being paid, but I had absolutely no control or overview."

This had to change: "I wanted insight. I wanted to be able to manage my finances. I hesitated for a long time though, because I am a creative, and want to make new things, create etc.. Bookkeeping is my biggest sticking point, but nevertheless: new year, new beginning. So, since January 2021, I have been using SnelStart."

SnelStart, also Dutch, is online invoice and accounting software for entrepreneurs and accountants. It immediately gave Wendy lots of insight into her finances: "I have more control, and can retrieve things or review them. While I still have a lot to learn, I think an entrepreneur should also know what's going on financially, and SnelStart gives me very precise insight into my cash flow."

And then she gets really excited: "It's really great, as I can see all my cash and banking flows. I see what's coming in, and what's going out. Everything is also very conveniently visualised with graphs. A kind of Google Analytics for your finances, so to speak. And that's what I needed, because now I know exactly what's happening."

“Thanks to Combidesk's integration, saving time is my gift to myself. And I can put this time back into creating new products so that my webshop can continue to grow.” Wendy Huijs - Van den Ham, owner Little Trophy

The next step - automation - has already been taken.

Thanks to an integration from Combidesk - which, not entirely surprisingly, is also a Dutch company - Wendy connected SnelStart and Lightspeed. "Things are working like a charm! I was able to install the integration myself, and everything went very smoothly, with all my sales invoices automatically absorbed into SnelStart. I immediately see the name of the customer and order number, and the transaction is automatically assigned the correct general ledger number. Which means SnelStart automatically enters any customer data based on the sales form in my Lightspeed webshop. This saves me a lot of manual work. In SnelStart, I also see what each customer has bought, as well as how 'big' this customer is compared to all sales. Which is convenient, if I want to give my top 10 customers a present, for example."

"Thanks to Combidesk's integration, saving time is my gift to myself. And I can put this time back into creating new products so that my webshop can continue to grow."

Automate your bookkeeping = instant time savings

Connect your webshop (such as Shopify, WooCommerce, Lightspeed, CCV Shop, Magento2, Mijnwebwinkel or Plug&Pay) with your accounting software (Moneybird, Exact Online, SnelStart, Twinfield, AFAS, Yuki or e-Boekhouden) and let customers, invoices, and payments flow through automatically. Less manual work, fewer errors, more control. Also compatible with automatic reconciliation between Mollie, PayPal, Stripe, Pay., Shopify Payments, Rabo Smart Pay or ING Checkout.