Why Vellum’s CEO Offloaded AR to Invoice Butler — and Never Looked Back
The result: Dozens of hours saved per month and in the CEO’s words, “9/10 peace of mind.”
$600K
Collected revenue in 2 quarters
$107K
Previously outstanding cash that was recovered
70%
Acceleration in collections
0 hires
No new headcount added
Vellum's Accounts Receivable Hurdle
Vellum is a fast-growing YC-backed company building infrastructure for teams developing AI apps in production. Their product is used by giants like Redfin, Headspace, and telecoms across Europe.
With consistent 10–20% MoM growth and mid-single-digit millions in ARR, Vellum had one problem:
Too many customers. Too many payment terms. Too little time.
With consistent 10–20% MoM growth and mid-single-digit millions in ARR, Vellum had one problem:
Too many customers. Too many payment terms. Too little time.
“It Was Linearly Scaling With My Time.”
“I didn’t want to do AR anymore. It was clear this wasn’t going to scale — every invoice meant another line item in my brain.”
CEO Akash Sharma understood the stakes. He came from management consulting and had deep financial literacy. He wasn’t confused by AR: he was overwhelmed by it.
- Supplier portals
- AWS/GCP marketplaces
- Quarterly vs. annual contracts
- Manually checking who had paid
- Manually escalating when they hadn’t
Manually emailing, tracking, following up
“Even if I become a $100M ARR CEO, AR is still going to be a problem. And I didn’t want to hire another person just to chase invoices.”
The Tools Weren’t the Answer
Akash tried:
- QuickBooks: painful UX
- Stripe Invoicing: nice UI, but charged 0.4% even for ACH
- Brex: decent, but lacked recurring invoicing at the time
“It just wasn’t worth it to pay 0.4% to Stripe for a $50K invoice. Brex was better, but still, I had to manually check each month whether we’d billed.”
So he did what many early-stage founders do: He started building a spreadsheet.
“I had to collect the billing contact. Figure out terms. Send the invoice. Then half the time it was crickets.”
Why It Worked
Akash didn’t need more data. He needed leverage.
“You just gave Invoice Butler an AR email at our domain. They did the rest.”
What he didn’t expect:
- Strategic escalations that actually worked
- Zero micromanagement
- No need to hire or onboard a contractor
Board- and investor-ready AR hygiene — on autopilot
What It Unlocked
“As a founder, I should only be doing what’s uniquely possible for me. AR was not that. Invoice Butler gave me my time back.”
That time went toward:
- Building the team
- Closing new deals
- Improving product
- Planning Vellum’s next stage of growth
“Every three months your job as a founder changes. Invoice Butler let me evolve into the next version of my role.”
The Future
“You’ve already recovered $100K+ for us. I expect that number to grow with our revenue.”
And Vellum’s not stopping. Neither is their need for reliable, scalable AR.
“As we scale, Invoice Butler is a no-brainer. If you’re comparing it to hiring, there’s no comparison.”
TL;DR
Vellum’s CEO wanted out of the AR weeds — but he didn’t want to hire.
He needed the results without the headcount. He found it in Invoice Butler.
He needed the results without the headcount. He found it in Invoice Butler.
“I’d be a 9 out of 10 sad if Invoice Butler went away. I just don’t want to deal with this again.”