Compa helps the world’s largest companies—Tesla, Nvidia, Amazon, Walmart, GM, and more—understand and benchmark compensation with precision.
But behind the scenes, as Compa scaled rapidly post-Series A, finance operations were straining under enterprise complexity.
How Compa Automated Every Supplier Portal and Collected Millions in Enterprise AR
Results
$2M+
accelerated collections
50+
Supplier portal submissions automated and counting
80%
Overdue AR reduced
5 hr/week
returned to strategic finance
The Situation: Series A Growth, Seed-Stage Finance Ops
When Eric Foster, Head of Finance at Compa, joined shortly after the company closed a $10M Series A at an $80M valuation, he inherited what he describes as “seed-stage finance sophistication.”
That meant:
- A master Google Sheet for deals
- A separate Google Sheet for collections
- Manual invoice creation in QuickBooks
- Manual follow-ups—if someone remembered
This worked at ~20 customers.
It completely broke down as Compa found product-market fit and began scaling enterprise logos.
“It was fine when we were small. But it wasn’t sustainable—and honestly, I felt embarrassed showing it to investors.”
Step One: Fix Invoicing (But AR Was Still Broken)
Eric’s first move was modernizing subscription management. He implemented Subscript to:
- Centralize contract terms
- Automate invoice schedules
- Sync with HubSpot CRM
That solved invoicing creation, but collections and enterprise portals were still manual.
The real problem:
Compa’s customers don’t just “pay an emailed PDF.”
They require:
- Coupa
- Ariba
- Custom in-house portals (Amazon, Tesla, etc.)
As Compa grew to hundreds of customers, Eric found himself blocking out 3-5 hours weekly just to upload invoices.
“I had three hours a week on my calendar just for invoicing portals. And that didn’t even include following up to get paid.”
To make matters worse:
- Multiple Coupa and Ariba accounts existed under different sales reps
- Some invoices were delayed days or weeks between creation and submission
- Overdue invoices piled up—not from bad customers, but broken process
The Breaking Point: Time, Scale, and Opportunity Cost
Eric knew the work had to get done, but also knew it wasn’t strategic. Spending this much time in Coupa and Ariba was becoming a real blocker to his time but at the same time, really important to get done. It was a rock and a hard place.
The alternative was clear:
- Keep doing it himself
- Or hire an analyst just to chase invoices
Neither felt right.
That’s when he came across Invoice Butler.
“Turning paper into paper keeps the lights on. But it’s not where the company needs me spending my time.”
Why Invoice Butler: A Force Multiplier, Not Just Dunning
Eric wasn’t looking for another reminder tool.
He wanted:
- Enterprise portal handling
- Persistent, contextual follow-ups
- Something that actually moved cash
What convinced him?
“We had a customer almost a year overdue on a $120K invoice. I figured—if they collect that and actually get them to pay, it pays for itself. Plus, I don’t want to keep doing Coupa and Ariba uploads constantly”
The Results: Immediate, Measurable ROI
Within the first week of Invoice Butler going live:
✅ $120K+ collected from a nearly year-old overdue invoice
✅ Follow-up unlocked a second-year invoice (~$130K)
✅ Both payments landed—cash Eric expected might take another year
“That one account almost paid for Invoice Butler by itself.”
Across the broader AR book:
- Overdue accounts dropped from 15–20 → 2–3
- Cash started arriving weeks to months faster
- Supplier portal uploads and follow ups to customers after uploads were completed were automatically taken care of without Eric thinking about them
Beyond Cash: What Invoice Butler Actually Enabled
The biggest impact wasn’t just collections—it was leverage.
Invoice Butler freed Eric to:
- Work directly with founders on growth strategy
- Confidently deploy capital into:
- New sales hires
- New engineering investments
- New vertical expansion
- New sales hires
At one point, months after raising $10M, Compa still had nearly the full amount in the bank—because cash flow stayed strong.
“It put us in a position of strength. We weren’t raising because we had to—we were raising because we wanted to.”
That strength carried into:
- Product launches (like Frontline, giving zip-code-level wage visibility)
- Enterprise wins with Lowe’s, Home Depot, Nordstrom, Meijer
- Series B conversations without desperation or dilution pressure
Why Eric Recommends Invoice Butler to Other Heads of Finance
For finance leaders at Series A–B companies selling to enterprise:
“If you’re even moderately successful, AR becomes real very quickly. And it’s not worth doing manually.”
His advice:
- Don’t wait until it’s unbearable
- Don’t hire headcount for non-strategic work
- Use tools that act as force multipliers, not dashboards
“Invoice Butler does the annoying part—consistently, persistently, and better than I ever could.”
The Bigger Picture: Finance Teams in the AI Era
Eric believes modern finance teams will look fundamentally different:
- Fewer entry-level “grunt work” roles
- More strategic operators earlier
- AI + automation replacing repetitive execution
“I just want the money in the bank. Tools like this let me focus on actually building the company.”
Recap
Company: Compa
Role: Eric Foster — Head of Finance
Stage: Series A → Series B
Use Case: Enterprise AR automation, portal invoicing, collections
$250K+
accelerated collections
80%+
Overdue AR reduced
5hr/week
returned to strategic finance