When your vendors count in pounds … but you sell in half-pounds.
How Ollie Pets escaped invoice math purgatory and got their vendors paid on time
Kyle Lambert, Controller at Ollie Pets, knows the headaches of rapid growth. Co-manufacturers billing in the wrong units. Vendors needing payment in 10 days. Ops teams too busy to re-approve slight variances. A million-dollar payment cap when you’re way past that scale. Here’s how his team automated away the pain points.
INTERNAL/EXTERNAL DISCUSSIONS
Approvers keep changing? Stampli can handle it.
“We’re a fast-growing company, adding lots of people every month. So approver responsibilities change pretty rapidly – an invoice that one person approved last month might need to go to someone different this month.”
“Before Stampli, that situation would’ve been handled through email or instant message to me or my team, and we’d have to manually recall that invoice and resend it.”
“Now users can message the AP department directly in Stampli saying ‘hey, this isn’t my invoice anymore, it should go to this person.’ We’ve basically taken ourselves out of that process, which has saved a lot of back and forth between us and all the approving managers.”
“Before Stampli, that situation would’ve been handled through email or instant message to me or my team, and we’d have to manually recall that invoice and resend it.”
“Now users can message the AP department directly in Stampli saying ‘hey, this isn’t my invoice anymore, it should go to this person.’ We’ve basically taken ourselves out of that process, which has saved a lot of back and forth between us and all the approving managers.”
EFFICIENCY
From four hours to four minutes, daily
“Billy the Bot learned to take the language on vendor invoices and translate it into ‘Ollie language’. We have different SKU names than what vendors use, and sometimes vendors change their invoice language. Billy picks up on all that.”
“Pre-Stampli, breaking down flat poundage into individual SKUs would take us anywhere from two to four hours a day. Now we’re spending just minutes on invoices. For inventory invoices with discrepancies, we used to need re-approval for any slight variance. With Stampli’s acceptable ranges, as long as we’re within that range, no additional approvals are needed. That’s huge because getting our overburdened operations team to re-approve could add a full day to the process.”
“Pre-Stampli, breaking down flat poundage into individual SKUs would take us anywhere from two to four hours a day. Now we’re spending just minutes on invoices. For inventory invoices with discrepancies, we used to need re-approval for any slight variance. With Stampli’s acceptable ranges, as long as we’re within that range, no additional approvals are needed. That’s huge because getting our overburdened operations team to re-approve could add a full day to the process.”
ERP INTEGRATION
NetSuite sync or it's a deal-breaker
“Stampli integrated really easily with NetSuite. The setup process took no time – our onboarding specialist walked us through it step by step. The system pulls information from NetSuite but also pushes information back, which has been super helpful, especially for POs. Those are created and approved in NetSuite, then integrated into Stampli so they’re there when invoices come in.”
“New accounts and vendors sync over seamlessly too. There’s a timed sync process, but administrators can kick off a manual integration that takes seconds. If Stampli didn’t have this depth of integration with our ERP, it would be a no-go. We couldn’t use a system that doesn’t integrate – it would create too much manual work and too much possibility for error.”
“New accounts and vendors sync over seamlessly too. There’s a timed sync process, but administrators can kick off a manual integration that takes seconds. If Stampli didn’t have this depth of integration with our ERP, it would be a no-go. We couldn’t use a system that doesn’t integrate – it would create too much manual work and too much possibility for error.”
Beyond AP: How Stampli adapts to solve more than just Invoice Processing
When your vendor speaks a different language
Adaptability
“One of our biggest challenges was how we get invoiced from our co-manufacturing vendors. They bill us based on pounds produced, but we have multiple SKUs in different weight increments – half pound, pound, pound and a half.”
“Before, we had someone dedicated to manually breaking that down. I was skeptical about automating that process, but Stampli really helped. It learned the nomenclature on vendor invoices and how we interpret that on our side, then synced them together.”
“We also have these variance ranges built into our contracts, usually around 5%. Stampli lets us set those acceptable ranges, so variances get flagged instantly. Since we have 10-day payment terms dealing with fresh food, faster processing means vendors get paid quicker.”
“Before, we had someone dedicated to manually breaking that down. I was skeptical about automating that process, but Stampli really helped. It learned the nomenclature on vendor invoices and how we interpret that on our side, then synced them together.”
“We also have these variance ranges built into our contracts, usually around 5%. Stampli lets us set those acceptable ranges, so variances get flagged instantly. Since we have 10-day payment terms dealing with fresh food, faster processing means vendors get paid quicker.”
Small finance team wearing too many hats?
Persona-centric design
“We’re a small but mighty finance organization, so we wear a lot of different hats. Right now our coder/router role is the same as our AP authorization role. But as we get bigger, we need tighter internal controls – every business does. Having that flexibility within Stampli to assign different roles for proper segregation of duties is going to be key for us.”
“Getting new approvers set up is super simple. We just provide them Stampli’s training videos and documents. It’s self-service – watch the video, look at the document, and you should be good to go. Nobody’s even needed the one-on-one training option yet.”
“Getting new approvers set up is super simple. We just provide them Stampli’s training videos and documents. It’s self-service – watch the video, look at the document, and you should be good to go. Nobody’s even needed the one-on-one training option yet.”
Million-dollar payments shouldn't be split
Cash Flow Management
“Our previous AP provider had this million-dollar limit on payments. For us, that was a real problem. We had to make multiple payments on the same invoice just to be square with the vendor, which looks really unprofessional. I know we are a growing organization, but we’re a professional organization. The look of it just didn’t sit right with me.”
“With Stampli, that issue is gone. I can pay an invoice in full whenever it needs to be paid. Before it was more manipulative – okay, send half today, then remember to go back in tomorrow for the other half. Just a cumbersome, unprofessional process.”
“With Stampli, that issue is gone. I can pay an invoice in full whenever it needs to be paid. Before it was more manipulative – okay, send half today, then remember to go back in tomorrow for the other half. Just a cumbersome, unprofessional process.”
Postponing new hires by saving AP
ROI and Business Impact
“We went from taking four hours a day looking at variances between purchase orders and invoices to minutes. We’ve been able to postpone adding headcount to my department because we freed up so much time within the accounts payable function. For a small business, a small growing business like ours, that’s huge – being able to tell the company we can keep putting off this headcount because we’re finding savings internally.”
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