Protection & Prevention

When Brown Distributing Company, a local family-owned and operated beverage distributor, made the decision to transition from a national bank to The Bank of Austin, it wasn’t a maneuver they took lightly. As soon as they made the move, however, they started to realize the undeniable benefit of having dedicated, personalized service from financial partners who were in their corner, wanting them to succeed. With treasury management tools that improved payment collection and processing speeds to swift and secure fraud protection solutions, the decision to trust The Bank of Austin as their financial services provider has proven well worth the transition and helped the company continue to grow throughout Austin and its seven surrounding counties. 

Hector Montes, Accounting Manager at Brown Distributing Company, accepted his position within the business 26 years ago. A graduate of University of Texas at the time, it was his first job out of college, and he’s been with the Brown family ever since. For nearly three decades, Hector has contributed to the company’s expansion through his role as Accounting Manager. From Austin’s 6th street downtown to the rural markets in seven surrounding counties, Brown Distributing Company has grown from an exclusive distributor that handled only Budweiser and Bud Light Ultra products to venturing into the craft beer market, the seltzer market, and now the wine and liquor markets. But as the business grew, their need for more customized banking solutions grew along with it. This is where The Bank of Austin’s Bobbie Bishop and her team stepped in, helping Hector facilitate the company’s transition from a large corporate bank to The Bank of Austin.  

When we left the large corporate bank, of course we had concerns about how smoothly the transition would go. But it has been a great experience with The Bank of Austin. We have used their treasury management services, which took us a bit to get familiar with, but Bobbie’s team and our team both did our due diligence and made sure the process of learning the tools available to us went as smoothly as possible. – Hector Montes

In the beverage distribution business, one of the more tedious logistics of daily operations is deposit collection. Brown Distributing Company makes over 60 deposits a day, batched by delivery routes. With a remote deposit capture process that Hector and The Bank of Austin team were able to customize specifically to Brown Distributing Company’s needs, Hector can remotely manage the deposits collected daily, and from a confirmation notification he receives within minutes of deposit, knows that payments are safely transferred into the correct accounts in real time. The flexibility to have one overall batch deposit after those collections has streamlined accounting operations significantly, as opposed to making over 60 different deposits at the same time. 

These relationships that are just a phone call away with Bobbie Bishop and her team have also helped Hector catch an attempted act of fraud that could have cost Brown Distributing Company financial harm. Because of the ACH (Automated Clearinghouse) Filter process Hector established with the Bank, only existing product suppliers are approved to debit their account, and the Bank is flagged if an entity that isn’t on the pre-approved deposit list is trying to send payment.  

With fraud prevention protocols in place, Bobbie’s team caught an attempted cyber-attack on Brown Distributing Company while Hector was on summer vacation last June. Hector’s email was hacked, and within minutes of receiving a suspicious email from “Hector” that asked Bobbie to give him a code for an account listing, she called Hector’s assistant to verify and they determined the email was a fraudulent request. “An email was sent by a hacker on my behalf to Bobbie Bishop, our banker, asking to add a new COO to our account listing,” says Hector. “That was the first flag that our banking officer was able to catch. She immediately called me.” Hector was able to disconnect his email account that day and move forward, with the peace of mind that The Bank of Austin will continue to have anti-fraud processes in place that protect Brown Distributing Company’s financial wellbeing. 

Hector attributes Brown Distributing Company’s increased efficiency with daily operations in large part to Bobbie’s accessibility. “Picking up the phone and having a local contact that you deal with–having that relationship with Bobbie and our banking team and knowing that you can get a hold of them in a matter of minutes has been really important to us,” says Hector. He has peace of mind knowing that Bobbie and her team can be contacted at any time for solutions and guidance, and it has been one of the biggest benefits of their decision to move to The Bank of Austin.