How Luma Accounting Built a Billing System That Runs Itself

01 · The Challenge

Luma Accounting is a 17-person, fully remote accounting and advisory firm headquartered in Portland, Oregon. The firm was created by combining two established practices: Fox Hills Accounting, led by Heather Deibele, and Kim Kelleher's Raw Books firm. When the two partners came together to form Luma Accounting, they faced an immediate operational challenge: unifying the billing systems and client bases of two firms that had been running very differently.

“You just have no idea what you're doing in terms of how much effort and how much simpler it could be. You don't know the burden that is weighing on you at all times until it's not there anymore.”
Kim Kelleher, Co-Founder and Luminary, Luma Accounting

Heather had spent years refining her billing workflow and had been using Anchor for approximately a year before the merger. Kim had been managing client invoicing and payment collection through QuickBooks Online, handling sales receipts and payment methods manually. Bringing those two practices together under one roof meant creating a single, consistent billing process from the very start.

Today, Luma Accounting serves clients across the full spectrum of accounting and advisory services. The firm operates with a team of Lantern Leaders (client managers who handle ongoing client relationships) and Light Keepers (bookkeepers doing the detailed work) while Heather and Kim focus on growth and firm leadership. As the team has grown, getting billing off everyone's plate has become central to Luma's model.

Before Anchor, managing billing was a source of ongoing friction on both sides of the eventual merger. Kim's experience with QuickBooks Online invoicing was a persistent source of risk. Payment methods had to be collected manually and entered by her team, creating both a security concern and a reliability problem. At one point, a configuration error meant a client was not actually being charged for months. The error went undetected until the balance had grown significantly, and the resulting conversation with the client was damaging to the relationship.

"I will never forget that," Kim recalled. "It was scarring to deal with. And that's where when I came together with Heather and she had a solution, I said yes please."

On Heather's side, she had moved from QuickBooks Online invoicing to Ignition before switching to Anchor, searching for something simpler and better suited to a recurring-service model. Ignition's cost structure, which included a higher fixed fee per invoice and monthly subscription fee, felt misaligned with the volume and type of work her firm was doing. She also found that Ignition was oriented primarily toward tax practices, rather than the bookkeeping and advisory model she ran.

Across both firms, the common thread was time spent on tasks that should not require human attention: tracking down payment methods, monitoring whether invoices had been approved, chasing clients who had not paid, and manually reconciling payments in QuickBooks at month end.

02 · The SolutionWhy Anchor

Heather first encountered Anchor at an industry conference and was drawn to the platform's simplicity and its pricing model. Unlike tools that charged a fixed fee per invoice or a monthly subscription, Anchor's per-transaction structure made the cost scale naturally with the firm's revenue rather than its invoice volume.

“Just make the switch to Anchor. Anytime you have to track down payments is a huge headache for any business, not just accounting firms.”
Heather Deibele, Co-Founder and Luminary, Luma Accounting

Two capabilities stood out as immediate differentiators. First, Anchor requires clients to connect a payment method before signing an agreement. This structural change meant the firm never had to chase down card details or bank information after the fact. Second, Anchor allows firms to pass credit card processing fees to clients, a feature that proved meaningful for Luma's economics.

When Luma Accounting was formed, the decision was made to run all billing through Anchor from the very first day. Rather than trying to maintain two systems in parallel, the partners worked with Anchor's team to migrate both client bases into a unified setup.

Implementation

When Luma Accounting launched, Anchor's team provided hands-on support to consolidate the two client bases. Heather's clients from Fox Hills Accounting were extracted from her existing Anchor account. Kim's Raw Books clients were organized into a CSV file, and both sets were imported into the new Luma account together. The data migration handled the client input work, though the team still reviewed and approved each agreement before sending, since every client needed to sign under the Luma name.

Across both practices, approximately 80 clients were onboarded onto Anchor at launch. Client response was straightforward. The requirement to add a payment method before signing meant most clients set up their details without prompting.

Luma Accounting has since integrated Anchor with its broader technology stack. The firm uses Double for project management, and when a new agreement is signed in Anchor, it automatically triggers client setup in Double, eliminating a manual step that previously required team intervention. A series of Zaps extends this automation further, kicking off internal tech stack setup whenever a new agreement goes live.

"That trigger of when the agreement gets signed kicks everything else off," Heather said. "That has saved our team probably a couple of hours alone just on the tech stack setup."

Luma Accounting is also just starting to take advantage of the integration between Anchor and Ping Assistant - having Anchor’s agreements and service items understood by the Ping Assistant meeting recorder will highlight clients that might be ready for additional services.

03 · The ResultsDirect Savings

The most immediate change Luma Accounting experienced was the elimination of manual payment tracking. Because clients connect a payment method before work begins, the firm has not had to chase down card or banking details for recurring clients. For each new client engagement, this saves the team approximately two hours that previously went toward collecting payment information, following up on unsigned agreements, and manually entering data across systems (based on the firm's own assessment).

“Anchor just alleviates an unnecessary headache for the whole billing cycle. Being able to collect payment methods and enable certain settings so you don't have to handle approvals is a game-changer.”
Heather Deibele, Co-Founder and Luminary, Luma Accounting

Merchant fee costs have also fallen meaningfully. Anchor's per-invoice pricing structure, combined with the ability to pass credit card processing fees to clients and the absence of a monthly platform subscription, has reduced the firm's effective cost of billing by approximately 40 to 50 percent compared to prior tool costs, saving roughly $300 per month.

Today, approximately 98 percent of Luma's clients are on recurring autopay. The firm does still handle some hourly billing and a small number of clients who pay outside Anchor, but for the vast majority of its book, billing runs without any manual intervention. Invoices go out, payments clear, and the reconciliation syncs automatically to QuickBooks Online.

Heather uses Anchor's business dashboard as her primary tool for monitoring billing health. Outstanding payments, declined transactions, and clients whose payment methods need attention surface immediately, replacing what used to be a process of running reports and cross-referencing records manually.

The time recovered from billing administration has not just reduced overhead. It has shifted what Luma's team can focus on. With less time spent on invoicing and follow-up, the team has more capacity for advisory work and deeper client engagement. The firm is now exploring how to quantify and monetize that expanded capacity.