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Is Invoice Butler or Upflow the right choice for AR automation? The tricky part of answering that is that they are not the same type of solution: one is software you use to build workflows and the other is a service that runs collections for you. We will show you exactly where that distinction matters, especially when a client asks for paperwork or their payment gets stuck in a procurement portal your software cannot touch.
TLDR:
- Invoice Butler handles the entire AR workflow including replies and portal work, while Upflow focuses on dashboards and reminders.
- Invoice Butler manages supplier portals like Coupa and Ariba from start to finish for you.
- You get real-time Slack support with Invoice Butler instead of email ticket queues with Upflow.
- Invoice Butler escalates across email, phone, LinkedIn, and text to reach decision-makers.
- Invoice Butler acts as your outsourced AR team, instead of software you must hire and train staff to learn.
What is Upflow?
Upflow is a software solution built to assist finance teams in managing their outstanding invoices. Think of it as a clever toolkit for your existing staff. It does not step in to do the actual chasing like a service provider might, but it gives your team the digital structure to run their own collections campaigns.
The product syncs with accounting records such as QuickBooks, NetSuite, Xero, Chargebee, and Stripe Billing to centralise your data. Once connected, users can map out email sequences and keep an eye on metrics like Days Sales Outstanding (DSO), aging buckets, and billing cohorts. It allows finance managers to build logical workflows that ping customers automatically when payment is due, while tracking promises to pay inside its dashboard.
Because of this design, Upflow is often the right fit for mid-market B2B firms that prefer to keep collections in-house. It is built for companies that have the headcount to manage the process but need a sharper set of tools to keep the ledger tidy and maintain predictable follow-ups. Your team still sends emails and makes calls, but Upflow gives them a shared workspace and consistent playbooks.
What is Invoice Butler?
Invoice Butler is a full-service AR execution partner. Instead of giving you a screen of buttons and asking your staff to chase invoices, it provides a team and tooling that run collections on your behalf. The product connects to your billing systems, reads open invoices, and then helps you get paid by handling the outreach, replies, and portal work directly as if it were part of your internal finance function.
Under the hood, Invoice Butler combines AI-driven outreach with human specialists who review tricky cases. Automated reminders sound like they came from your company, and when a customer replies with questions or objections, an AR specialist steps in to resolve the issue. That blend lets you keep your brand voice and customer relationships intact while moving money off the aging report.
Where Upflow is primarily software, Invoice Butler behaves like a done-for-you AR department. You still see status updates, but your calendar no longer fills with “follow up on invoice 123” tasks.
Collections Execution and Customer Communication
Upflow hands your finance team a strong set of controls. You build the workflows, customize the templates, and set the logic for when reminders go out. It works well for automating the initial outreach, but once a customer replies, the responsibility comes back to your team. Your staff must read the response, draft the answer, and manage the negotiation manually.
At Invoice Butler, we take a different path by managing the entire lifecycle. About 70% of companies have DSO extending beyond 46 days, which severely disrupts cash flow. Our AI-driven system analyzes payment patterns to identify at-risk accounts and can improve collections by up to 30% while reducing DSO by 10-20%.
Research shows that companies implementing automated AR workflows reduce DSO by 20-35% compared to manual processes, with automated reminders collecting payments 12-18 days faster.
We go beyond sending the reminder and handle the conversation. Whether a client needs a W-9 form or questions the payment terms, we sort it out so your finance team can stay focused on higher-value work. If the usual contact goes quiet, we find the decision-maker who can actually sign off on the funds. We are happy to pick up the phone, send a text, or nudge them on LinkedIn.
Here is how the two models compare:
Supplier Portal Management
Wrangling procurement portals like Coupa, Ariba, or Tipalti is often the most tiresome part of the accounts receivable process. Upflow, as a software-only offering, cannot log into third-party systems on your behalf. It sends helpful email reminders, but it hits a wall when a customer demands you upload a PDF to their specific web portal. Your team must still manually log in, click through menus, and key in data, which takes time away from strategic work.
We take this burden entirely off your plate. Invoice Butler manages the portal process from start to finish. We log in, upload the necessary documents, and fill out every required form. If a submission gets rejected or is stuck in a pending status, we chase it down until it is approved and the invoice is cleared. It is tedious work, but we are quite happy to do it so you do not have to.
While standard tools leave you to manage these external systems on your own, we treat portal work as a core part of the service. You issue the invoice, and we see to it that it travels through the procurement maze and lands in the correct approval queue.
Integration, Support, and Team Collaboration
Upflow connects to your finance stack using standard APIs. They offer links to major ERPs and CRMs like NetSuite, QuickBooks, Xero, Salesforce, and billing tools such as Chargebee and Stripe Billing. Data syncs in near real time so you can see invoice statuses, payments, and DSO trends from one interface. When you need help, support typically happens via email tickets or scheduled calls.
We prefer getting straight to business. Invoice Butler offers one-click connections to QuickBooks Online, Xero, NetSuite, Bill.com, Stripe, Sequence, and Campfire. Getting set up takes less than five minutes, with no engineering projects or middleware required. We plug directly into your systems and start working open invoices almost immediately.
The sharpest contrast is how we communicate. While many vendors rely on ticket queues, we open a dedicated Slack channel for your finance crew. This allows collaboration in real time. If a tricky situation pops up or a specific client needs a tailored approach, we are right there to work through it with you. We act as an extension of your staff, providing human judgment and context-sensitive decisions instead of scripted responses.
Why Invoice Butler is the Better Choice
The key question is whether you want software your team must operate or a partner that actually runs collections. Upflow is a strong choice if you already have AR staff, need better visibility, and want to standardise reminder workflows across a growing customer base. It shines when you care most about dashboards, email sequences, and internal coordination, and you are comfortable keeping all customer communication in-house.
Invoice Butler is built for companies that want collections handled with minimal internal effort. We manage outreach, replies, and supplier portals. We escalate across channels until a real decision-maker engages. We blend automation with human oversight so edge cases do not block payment. For finance leaders who measure value in reclaimed hours and lower DSO, having an outsourced AR team often beats another dashboard for your staff to maintain.
If your customers rely heavily on procurement portals, the difference is even more pronounced. Only Invoice Butler logs into systems like Coupa, Ariba, and Tipalti to upload invoices and chase approvals on your behalf, while tools like Upflow leave that task on your plate.
Final Thoughts on Choosing Your AR Solution
Upflow works well if you have staff who can manage collections and just need better tools. But Invoice Butler's AR automation removes the entire burden by handling conversations, portal uploads, and escalations for you. Your team stops spending hours on payment follow-ups and gets back to actual finance work. We're here if you'd prefer someone else do the chasing while you focus on growing your business.
FAQs
How should I decide between Upflow and Invoice Butler for my business?
If you have a finance team that prefers to maintain direct control over collections and simply needs better tools to organize their work, Upflow is worth considering. If you would like to remove the collections workload entirely and have someone else handle follow-ups, portal submissions, and customer conversations, Invoice Butler is the better fit.
What's the main difference in how the two services handle customer replies?
When a customer responds to a payment reminder in Upflow, your team receives the message and must manually draft replies and manage the conversation. With Invoice Butler, we handle all the back-and-forth ourselves, answering questions about payment terms, providing requested documents, and continuing the conversation until the invoice is paid.
Can Invoice Butler really handle supplier portals like Coupa and Ariba?
Yes, we log into procurement portals on your behalf, upload invoices, fill out required forms, and chase approval statuses until payment is confirmed. Upflow, as software only, does not manage these portals for you, so your team would still need to handle that work manually.
Who is Upflow best suited for?
Upflow works well for mid-market B2B companies that have dedicated finance staff available to run collections campaigns and want software to help organize their workflow, track metrics like DSO, and automate initial reminder sequences. It is best when you want better systems but plan to keep outreach and negotiation inside your team.
How quickly can I get started with Invoice Butler compared to Upflow?
Invoice Butler typically takes under five minutes to set up with one-click integrations to your accounting system, and we start working on your behalf immediately. Upflow also integrates with major platforms, but you will spend additional time building workflows, configuring segments, and training your team on the system before you see similar impact.
