How Venti Accounting Cut Billing Time by 67% and Moved 99% of Clients to Autopay

01 · The Challenge

For years, Venti Accounting ran its billing through an outdated Microsoft billing platform that required manual entry every single month. A partner or admin team member would go into the system, manually input service codes for each client, print the invoice, fold it, address the envelope, and mail it out. Every step was a separate task, and the entire front-end billing cycle consumed roughly 30 hours a month.

Clients paid on their own timeline. Most received paper invoices in the mail and sent back paper checks, which arrived sporadically. When the checks did come in, they had to be manually posted to the correct period in the billing platform, then physically deposited at the bank one or two times a week. The firm was invoicing for work that had already been completed and then waiting, sometimes for months, to be paid for it.

The result was a revolving AR balance of approximately $100,000 every month. Outstanding amounts were tracked in a Word document that was eventually upgraded to an Excel spreadsheet. During tax season, that AR figure climbed higher still, as the firm added hundreds of one-time tax preparation invoices to the monthly recurring backlog.

Following up on late payments fell to the partners. The conversations were uncomfortable by design. Clients would say they had not received the invoice, or that a check was on the way, and the check often did not come. In the most severe cases, the firm would continue providing services for six months before finally pausing work and demanding payment on the balance. The dynamics strained relationships that the firm had spent years building.

“We were that stereotypical accountant where we were okay with whenever the client sent us the check. It was very passive and it felt like we were always chasing money.”
Josh Streimer, Partner, Venti Accounting

02 · The SolutionWhy Anchor

Josh came across Anchor through a social media advertisement and was immediately drawn to the fact that it was built specifically for accounting firms rather than adapted from a generic billing tool. The firm had previously signed up with another payment processing platform, which required sending each client an individual link and asking them to manually type in the invoice amount. The experience was clunky, error-prone, and did not solve the underlying problem.

With Anchor, each client would have their own profile, the correct invoice amount would be pre-populated, and payment would be collected automatically on the agreed date. Josh went through what he describes as every possible scenario during the sales process, pressing on edge cases and workflow questions. The Anchor team answered each one. A chance meeting with the company's founders, who were visiting South Florida clients, added further confidence.

“You could tell there was a lot of intentionality throughout the company. When you are on enough sales calls on the tech side, you will sometimes get someone who really does not know the product they are selling. That was not the case here.”
Josh Streimer, Partner, Venti Accounting

Implementation

Migrating an established client base from paper checks to electronic autopay carried real risk. About a year before switching to Anchor, the firm had attempted a different platform and found that the client experience was too cumbersome to drive adoption at scale.

The transition to Anchor went differently. Clients were given their own portal where everything was organized and the billing amount was already set correctly. The overwhelming majority completed their payment setup without friction. Josh estimates that approximately 98 to 99 percent of the client base successfully onboarded. A small number of clients, roughly 10 percent by his account, were initially resistant to any change in how they paid, but even most of those came around once they saw how much easier the new process was.

The firm's admin team handled client questions as they came in during the transition, walking clients through setup when needed. The conversations were straightforward, and the volume of questions was low.

03 · The ResultsDirect Saving

Autopay adoption moved from 1% to 99% following the transition. With nearly the entire recurring client base on automatic payment, the $100,000 monthly AR backlog effectively disappeared. The firm no longer runs AR aging reports on its own receivables.

Billing time dropped from approximately 30 hours per month to under 10 hours per month. The reduction came from eliminating manual service code entry, removing the physical invoicing and mailing process, ending trips to the bank, and removing the need for follow-up calls and emails on outstanding invoices.

The time recovered went back to clients. The admin team member who previously spent her days on billing logistics now uses that time to communicate directly with clients, answer questions, and support onboarding. At the partner level, Josh no longer needs to make uncomfortable calls about overdue balances.

“Looking at AR at $80,000 to $100,000 a month used to be a gut punch. Now we know on a consistent basis what the income is going to be, predictably, through the end of the year. Without a doubt, it has helped us make decisions from a management perspective.”
Josh Streimer, Partner, Venti Accounting

Cash flow predictability changed how the firm makes decisions. With recurring revenue arriving consistently at the start of each month rather than trickling in across 30 to 90 days, Josh can forecast staffing needs, technology investments, and operational changes with confidence rather than uncertainty.

The broader shift, in Josh's words, is that Venti Accounting can now present itself as a technologically current firm from the very first client interaction. The proposal, the engagement, and the billing all flow through a single system. Clients never feel chased. Partners never have to be the ones doing the chasing.