At Koolboks, speed isn't just nice to have; it's survival

Koolboks is a French-Nigerian company delivering solar-powered refrigeration to underserved communities across Africa. Their mission is to make cooling affordable and accessible to those who need it most, especially small-scale traders who rely on refrigeration to stay in business.

With 7,000 units sold across 23 countries, Koolboks isn't just distributing solar-powered cooling solutions; they're powering livelihoods. But behind the scenes, their finance operations were struggling to keep up.

The problem

Scaling teams, outdated tools

As Koolboks grew from 1,000 to 7,000 customers, their internal processes couldn't keep up. The company had to split into multiple subsidiaries to stay agile, but their finance operations remained centralised and painfully manual.

“We had transactions waiting for sign-off from people in board meetings or across time zones. Payments would stall for 72 hours. And our customers? They were the ones left waiting.”

— Abiodun Olamilekan-Mutairu, Head of Business Operations, Koolboks

Even simple approvals triggered delays. Manual processes were draining hours, frustrating employees, and hurting customer satisfaction.

The solution

An agile system for decentralised teams

During a team meeting, the CEO introduced Bujeti, and everything changed.

“That call was a turning point. Bujeti gave us exactly what we needed: a system that could decentralise approvals without losing control.”

— Abiodun Olamilekan-Mutairu, Head of Business Operations, Koolboks

With Bujeti, each subsidiary could now manage its own budget, initiate payments, and disburse funds without waiting on the central finance team.

Adebisi Adekemi, an accounts payable officer at Koolboks, felt the change immediately.

“Before Bujeti, finance was overwhelmed. Subsidiaries kept coming to us for payments. Now? We just fund their Bujeti accounts. They take it from there.”

The platform's automation, reversals, and real-time syncing gave the team full visibility without any hassle.

The results

Speed, independence, and total control

• Transaction approvals cut from 72 hours to 3 minutes

• Subsidiaries are now self-sufficient with zero bottlenecks

• Payments are auto-reversed in real-time when they fail

• Remote access for teams, even while travelling

“I can make payments from anywhere, even outside Lagos. If anything fails, Bujeti reverses it immediately. With commercial banks, I had to wait till the next day.” says Adebisi.

What used to be a tangled, multi-team process is now a smooth, self-service workflow across all Koolboks units.

Why it matters

Time reclaimed = impact delivered

Every minute saved in finance is time that goes back to what really matters: delivering cold storage to small businesses across Africa.

“If you’re still managing expenses manually, you’re losing time, and time is money. If you want control, speed, and peace of mind, adopt Bujeti.”

— Adebisi Adekemi, Account Payable Officer, Koolboks