Airbase and Pilot Fiber: Smoother processes, better control.

Onboarding: An opportunity to reevaluate.

Taka points out that the implementation of Airbase provided a great opportunity to step back and reexamine the whole process.

“We didn’t really have a system to support the processes that we wanted before Airbase.”

That led to conversations with key stakeholders, primarily in marketing and construction.

“We asked them: What are you hoping to accomplish? In the end, accounting and finance are a support function — supporting the rest of operations and the Pilot Fiber team.”

Purchasing and payments reimagined.

One of the central changes brought about by Airbase was the increased use of corporate cards, which improved the user experience while also providing better control, a full audit trail, and easier payment processing.

“With certain types of purchases, or purchases over or under a certain dollar amount threshold, we directed them to use virtual cards or physical cards,” Taka says.

In addition to streamlining the process, moving more payments onto corporate cards generates additional cash back for Pilot Fiber. The team also appreciates the strategic insights into subscriptions and preferred payment methods Airbase provides.

“It’s helped spur an initiative to move toward annual billing or even multiyear billing with some of our vendors to help save some money,” says Taka, who notes they once saved $1,500 from a single purchase simply by moving to card payments.

Another change is more compliance with the processes around purchase orders.

“Before Airbase, the amount of bills that were flowing through with purchase orders was less than we wanted. Airbase, with its simple UI, gets more people adopted into the system and the correct workflow.”

Efficiencies gained.

Taka notes a significant improvement in efficiency, particularly when it comes to bill payments.

He provides an example of greater efficiency when it comes to managing their partners.

“We pay many different channel partners for bringing in referrals. In the past, a lot of the work to create those bills was manual. We had spreadsheets and made the payments from the bank.

 

“When we look at some of the outcomes of moving to Airbase, one of the great things is that we were able to automate and establish a process with consistently documented payment records.”

The end result is saving at least a day every month in processing bill payments and a shorter close.

“In 2021, our average close time was somewhere between the 16th and 18th calendar day of the month. And now in the last six months, the average is around 10 or 11 days,” says Taka.

A seamless integration with Sage Intacct.

Sean and Taka both praise Airbase’s Sage Intacct integration. Sean notes the ease of setup and the improved visibility into spend

“When I’m in Intacct looking at a bill and I’m not exactly sure what it’s for, the Airbase link is embedded in the journal entry, which makes it very easy to use.”

The integration has been particularly helpful with regard to their corporate structure.

“As our Intacct instance is set up, we manage subsidiaries based on the location field. We’re able to route each transaction to the proper entity based on that detail allowing full reporting based on that and other dimensions defined in both systems.

“It’s really helpful to know we can just rely on Airbase to handle that syncing and not worry about data filtering out in the integration.”

The automated amortization feature with the Sage Intacct integration also makes the team’s life easier.

“It’s incredibly helpful to have that automation there, whereas in the past it was a fully manual, five-step process. This is a subtle but very much appreciated feature with the Intacct integration,” says Taka.

High employee adoption.

The transition to Airbase has been widely praised by employees, who single out the ease of use and simplicity.

Sean appreciates that whenever anyone has a question, he can easily find an article in the Airbase Help Center.

Both Sean and Taka also enjoy Airbase’s monthly product updates.

“Every time I see the Airbase product update email come out, I’m always looking at it intently to see what they are releasing for us to potentially use in the future. It’s really great to see all the updates being made and that Airbase isn’t just resting on its laurels,” says Taka.

Pilot Fiber said they’re excited about upcoming releases and look forward to continuing with Airbase.