Can you tell me a little about Emerge DX?

We have an instrument that diagnoses soft tissue damage, including sprains and back injuries. Instead of selling the equipment directly, we packaged it as a service that we offer to workers’ compensation organizations. When employees are hired, the test is performed to establish a baseline. Then if the employee ever has an injury, we repeat the test and note any damage so they can get the appropriate care and get back to work, explained Bob Thompson, CEO of Emerge DX.

How did you manage AP before BILL?

Our bill paying processes were very rudimentary. When an invoice came in, we’d manually enter it into NetSuite, store the invoice on Box, print out paper checks, and I would sign them all. I was the AR clerk, the check signer, and the CEO, but I knew I couldn’t continue to do all of those jobs as we scaled.

When did you move to BILL?

We implemented BILL in 2016. Our company had quintupled in size in just a few months, and the number of invoices was skyrocketing. With BILL, we only need one part-time AP clerk to process all of our bills, despite our exponential growth rate. It has enabled us to easily scale, without having to find and hire another AP clerk in a very tight employment market.

How did BILL help you when your company first started?

Like most startups, we were short on cash and had to juggle some of our payments. BILL is actually a good tool for that. You can sift through all of your bills, figure out what’s due now, identify which bills are the most important, and partially pay any invoices with flexible due dates. Having the visibility to ‘pay-as-you-go’ was very helpful during our initial growth period when cash was tight.

How has BILL helped you with financial controls and audits?

Our auditors didn’t want the same person entering the invoice, approving it, and paying it. By using BILL, we now have one person who processes the invoice, our accounting manager does the initial approval, and I sign for the payments—which makes our auditors and our team much happier. Since our AP clerk isn’t running around all day trying to issue checks, she can spend more time on analytics to make sure we’re not being mis-billed or double billed. BILL is enabling us to avoid at least $35K per year in bill overpayments.

What do you do all with all of your free time since you’ve streamlined AP?

By moving to BILL, I now have time to go out and sell our solution to new clients, not just sign and approve checks. Many financial organizations underestimate the value of an intelligent AP system like BILL. Why any company wouldn’t use BILL is a mystery to me!