How Basis Theory Cut DSO by 33% and Recovered $150K+ in 4 Months Without Adding Headcount
— Conner Nannini, Director of Finance, Basis Theory
About Basis Theory
Basis Theory is a payments infrastructure company that helps businesses store, process, and protect sensitive payment data. Their model is predominantly sales-led — roughly 70–80% enterprise, with the remainder from inbound PLG. As the company scaled, its finance function needed to keep pace with a growing customer base and an increasingly complex AR workload.
The Challenge: Collections Was A One-Person Job With No Good Options
When Conner Nannini joined Basis Theory as Director of Finance, he quickly discovered that the AR process was — in his own words — "nascent at best."
His manager was manually sending collection emails. They used Pylon, a solid ticketing system, but it wasn't designed for collections cadences. And customers were largely unresponsive to email outreach.
As Conner dug into the numbers, one thing jumped out immediately: a significant overdue AR balance that had been quietly accumulating.
"I took a look at our collections. I was like, 'Oh, there's a lot of stuff here that's overdue by a significant amount.' That was one of the first big finance-specific projects I hopped into — trying to reduce that AR balance."
As a one-person finance org, Conner faced the same dilemma most lean finance teams face:
- Hiring someone full-time to chase invoices felt like the wrong use of headcount
- Doing it himself meant trading away time that had far more leverage elsewhere
- Manual email campaigns weren't moving the needle
Why Invoice Butler
Conner came across Invoice Butler through Mihir Deo, its CEO. The value proposition was immediately clear: automate the repetitive, emotionally draining work of AR follow-up without sacrificing the context and nuance that makes customers actually respond.
Implementation: Fast and Low-Maintenance
Basis Theory was up and running quickly. The integration connected to their existing systems without requiring a dedicated setup project or weeks of configuration.
What Changed After Joining Invoice Butler
For Conner personally
He went from being actively involved in chasing invoices to almost never needing to think about it.
"We're at the point now where things are really on autopilot. There'll be a random request that bubbles up here or there of a very strange situation, but 99% of the time I don't have to get involved whatsoever — which is pretty ideal. That's the state I wanted to be in."
For the business
Invoice Butler didn't just speed up routine collections — it recovered money Conner had mentally written off.
"You guys were able to find active contacts, get them engaged, and get us paid pretty much close to — I'd say 50% of what they owed us. But that's pretty good given how old the things were and how ready I was to walk away from it."
Recoveries
The churned customer
The acquired company
The Results
ROI: Three Buckets
When asked to quantify the return, Conner broke it into three distinct categories:
1. Money they would have collected anyway — but faster. The 33% DSO reduction means cash arrives earlier, improving working capital.
2. Money they would have eventually collected — but without the labor cost. Without Invoice Butler, Conner or his manager would have spent hours personally chasing overdue balances. That time now goes to analytics, operations strategy, and higher-leverage work.
3. Money they would never have collected at all. The churned customer and the acquired company represent dollars that would have simply been written off. Invoice Butler's ability to find active contacts in otherwise dead-end situations added direct revenue.
And then there's the qualitative ROI:
"The ROI there is probably, personally to me, the most important — my sanity and mental health of being able to spend time doing projects that I'm much more interested in than badgering people over invoices."
Systems Scale Better Than People
Basis Theory's finance philosophy is simple: automate everything that can be automated, and only require human intervention where it's absolutely necessary. Invoice Butler fits squarely into that vision.
"We're really trying to only require human intervention where it's absolutely necessary, and make anything that can be done by automation, done by automation."
The team also appreciates the responsiveness on the product side. When Conner flagged a display bug — where ACH payments triggered on the due date were incorrectly showing as overdue during the processing window — it was fixed within a day.
Conner's Advice to Other Finance Leaders
If you're a one-person or small finance team, Conner's pitch is direct:
"If you are in a similar position to where I am — a one-person finance org or a very small finance org — accounts receivable is just not... there are more valuable things you can spend your time on. The ROI to me is very clearly positive."