Honeycomb and Airbase: How a team of two cruises through a five-day close with Airbase.

With Airbase, a two-member team can hit a five-day close.
Use of the full platform makes for an efficient process that employees love and finance relies on.
Corporate card cash back has exceeded the cost of the system.

Industry

Data software & services

Size

150-300 employees

Accounting/erp Software

Oracle NetSuite

Honeycomb provides full-stack observability software enabling engineers to deeply understand and debug production software together.

Efficiency success stories, supported by Airbase.

At Honeycomb, efficiency is a core value. Their Accounting Manager, Brittany Murphy, explains that that is why Airbase is the “perfect solution” for them. As a fast-growing company, their AP and expense management requirements have grown rapidly in volume and complexity. However, Brittany handles it all with just one other accounting team member thanks to Airbase and its extensive functionality. She is pleased to see that Airbase will continue to support their growth, as Airbase meets the purchasing and payables needs of the new subsidiary they are currently setting up.

“I credit Airbase for being able to close the books by myself in five days.”

In addition, Honeycomb’s Head of Finance relies on the consolidated non-payroll spend data that Airbase provides.

“Our Head of Finance does the budgeting and forecasting for the board and communicates month-end results to management — he utilizes Airbase quite a bit.”

Brittany reflects on the fact that at other companies, credit card reconciliations alone could take a whole team up to three days to complete. She added that credit card reconciliation is a “huge thing for close” and eliminating this task is a great value-add. With Airbase, Brittany explains that all the receipt gathering and detail chasing is replaced by automation.

Brittany also credits the fluid integrations Airbase offers with NetSuite and QuickBooks as a catalyst to her efficient close. Even as she migrated from QuickBooks to NetSuite at Honeycomb, Brittany never skipped a beat.

“We used QuickBooks previously and now we use NetSuite — the integration transition was seamless.”

Being able to create approval workflows that are specific to the needs of different departments means Brittany is confident that spending is compliant and maverick spend is eliminated. With Airbase she can see what is being spent by each employee as it happens for an easy, real-time review. She says “that transparency is just so nice, the rules are built into the system so they’re automatically followed.”

How Airbase pays for itself.

Brittany shares with us that she uses Airbase to handle all of her AP processes and payments, from checks to ACH. She adds that she encourages employees to use virtual and corporate cards due to the cashback benefits. So far, this approach has paid off.

“In the past couple of months, the additional income we’ve earned has more than covered our platform cost.”

Brittany has better control over cash flow with Airbase and finds scheduling payments with advanced calendar capabilities a breeze. Brittany tells us, “We really don’t ever have vendors questioning us for payment because everything’s already scheduled. It’s already going out. It’s already paid.”

Staying secure with control settings and increased visibility.

As their software subscriptions increased alongside growth, the company wanted to find a way for the IT security team to review software purchases. Brittany was able to adjust the settings in Airbase to automatically route requests for software to IT for their approval.

“We set up specific rules so that if the spend is software, and if it’s a new vendor, and if the spend is above zero dollars, then one of our security team will become involved in the approval.”

For added oversight, Brittany praises the alias and observer settings Airbase offers. The company’s Head of Finance can “see what’s going on without actually having to be in the workflow.” Brittany says these settings ensure the right spend is happening as appropriate to the right departments.

Airbase collaborates with your tech stack.

Airbase integrates with HRIS systems to make the provisioning and deprovisioning of new employees seamless.

“One thing I really like is that Airbase integrates with Rippling. That integration means we don’t even have to provision people in Airbase, they can just sign in. It automatically puts in their manager, their department, everything.”

The company also appreciates Airbase’s deep integration with NetSuite. This is especially helpful to use NetSuite amortization schedules in Airbase. Brittany is “excited” to begin using the multi-subsidiary and multi-currency features once Honeycomb establishes its new entity.

“Airbase actually recommends if you have NetSuite to utilize Airbase for the amortization schedule, then actually manage it in NetSuite. That’s what we do and it’s worked really nicely.”

Employees love Airbase.

“Employees generally find that the system is very intuitive,” which has helped save the small accounting team time. Employee feedback is that virtual cards, purchase orders, and seeking approvals is “easy to figure out.” To make sure everything runs smoothly, Brittany relies on the simulation features Airbase offers, where she can run through workflows to ensure they’re doing what they should be.

Brittany reports that both management and employees are happier when using Airbase to manage reimbursements and there is greater control. “There are more eyes on reimbursement processes with Airbase.” She also noted that compared to other reimbursement solutions, which tend to group transactions together for approval, Airbase allows managers to quickly view itemized and detailed reimbursement requests while still maintaining the option to view or approve group reports.

Alongside that increased visibility, Honeycomb employees have been enjoying easy upload of receipts and increased efficiency around reimbursement approvals, as well as the new option of quickly requesting a virtual card to avoid personal expense.

“Somebody said it was so easy while they were traveling to just send their receipts in real time.”

Airbase grows with you while maintaining efficiency.

Brittany describes Airbase as “the perfect solution for our company” with its commitment to efficiency, adding that “that’s why our Head of Finance chose Airbase — because he saw that it is all about efficiency.” Within her role, Brittany can continue to love what she does while enjoying smoother processes and workflows with Airbase.

“I really enjoy accounting, but I also enjoy tools that make my life easier. That’s the reason why I’m such a champion for Airbase.”