How LaunchNotes Collected $400K+ Without Touching A Single Invoice

With Invoice Butler, LaunchNotes collected $400K+ in just a year, freed their CS team from invoice follow-ups, and scaled their customer base without pulling them into invoice follow-ups.
$400K+
Collected in a year
1
Week onboarding
0
Invoice follow-ups handled by the CS team
Weekly
AR visibility reports to COO, CFO and execs
"For me as a COO, I would say the biggest value is just having visibility into our payments and when money is going to be hitting the bank.”
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- Jake Brereton, Co-founder & COO, LaunchNotes

About LaunchNotes

LaunchNotes is a product communications platform that keeps customers, stakeholders, and internal teams aligned across every product update. Trusted by teams at Square, Toast, and LangChain, it's built by SaaS veterans from Atlassian, Mozilla, and StatusPage.

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The Challenge: Renewals Stuck In Procurement, CSMs Stuck Chasing Payments

As LaunchNotes grew, the same question kept coming up at month-end CFO reviews: why isn't the money in the bank?
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Once a renewal hit procurement, things started falling apart often:

  • PO numbers were incorrect
  • Signatures didn't reach the right people in time
  • Net 30 invoices were stretching to 40, 50 days unpaid

Every gap meant the same scramble: find the right CSM, have them ping their contact, have that contact find someone in procurement. And it kept happening more as the customer base grew.

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"It's not where we want our CSMs spending their time."

Why Automated AR Was The Right Call

For Jake, the logic was simple: automate anything that doesn't need a human.

AI-powered AR automation solved exactly that:

  • Collections off the CS team's plate 
  • Full cash visibility 
  • Team is always in the "good cop" seat with customers
  • Instant follow-up the moment something goes overdue

And with Invoice Butler, he found a team he could trust to run it.

"Any chance I can automate an entire process to a team I trust, that's a win for the business."

Implementation: Up And Running In A Week

Onboarding was exactly what Jake expected from a well-run team: fast and seamless.

  • Fully onboarded within 1 week
  • Slack channel connected from day one
  • Integrated across Stripe, Ariba and more
  • First invoice chased within weeks of going live
"We were onboarded within a week and a few weeks after that, you were helping me chase up an invoice already."

The Turning Point: Staying Out Of It Entirely

The shift was more than saving time. It was about handing off something critical to a team that operated like an extension.

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"The customer success manager we work with on your side is an extension of our team."


Invoice Butler helped with:

  • Direct Slack line to Invoice Butler for anything urgent
  • Handling customers without ruffling feathers
  • Accessing payment platforms, LaunchNotes didn't have logins to

And for the first time, Jake could step back from collections completely.

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The Results: $400K+ Collected And Zero Team Hours Wasted

1. CS Team Back To High-Impact Work

Every hour saved on collections went straight back into customer relationships for renewals, onboarding, and account growth.
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2. Handled Every Payment Platform

LaunchNotes' customers use every tool under the sun and Invoice Butler worked with all of them:

  • Stripe, Ariba and homegrown tools covered
  • No extra logins or overhead for the team
  • PO and order form issues resolved without looping anyone in

3. Leadership Always in the Loop

No more digging for answers at month-end:

  • Weekly cash reports delivered 
  • Issues flagged before they became problems

For a lean team trying to do more with less, the impact went far beyond just collecting faster.

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Automate If It Doesn't Need A Human

Jake's operating principle is simple: every person and every hour should be on the highest-impact work possible.
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Collections didn't need a human. It needed a system that never:

  • Forgets to follow up
  • Loses track of what's owed
  • Pulls the wrong person into the wrong conversation
"If you're a lean team that's trying to scale really quickly, automate everything that you can. Invoice collection is absolutely something you should automate and it is a no-brainer to work with Invoice Butler."

Jake's Advice To Other Founders 

For teams that are:

  • Lean and trying to scale fast
  • Letting CS handle collections by default
  • Sitting on unpaid invoices with no clear owner

His suggestion is straightforward:
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"Put 110% of their time into the things that have the highest impact for the business. Outsource anything and everything else you can."

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