Within 30 days of deploying LedgerUp’s AI agent Ari, HappyRobot eliminated 100 % of invoice errors, recovered $72.5 k in previously un-billed overages, and avoided the $150 k+ annual cost of hiring a full-time billing engineer.
The team now spends <15 min/week (down from 15 hours) on contract-to-cash tasks — and to quote their team: “Ari is our new best friend.”
Company Snapshot
Challenges Before LedgerUp
- Manual overage math: 50+ contracts each carried bespoke minute tiers; finance copied usage CSVs into spreadsheets and hand-calculated overage invoices every month, leading to delays and errors.
- Stripe hygiene issues: Legacy invoices, duplicate customers, and inconsistent metadata confused reporting and reconciliation.
- Engineer hire on the table: Leadership budgeted for a mid-level full-stack engineer (~$150 k total comp in SF) to build an in-house usage-billing service.
- Revenue leakage & audit risk: Usage-based SaaS firms lose 5-10 % of ARR to under-billing when workflows stay manual.
Solution: Ari, the Contract-to-Cash Agent
Why Ari Beat the “Build” Option
- Speed: Production in < 1 week vs. 3–4 months of engineering.
- Flexibility: Handles ad-hoc price breaks & tier bumps without schema changes — a previous blocker for HappyRobot.
- Ownership: Data stays in HappyRobot’s Stripe account — no vendor lock-in.
Results After 30 Days
“Ari took a job we dreaded and turned it into a Slack notification we look forward to. He’s literally our new best friend.”
— Varez, Go-to-Market Lead, HappyRobot
“We recouped an entire engineer’s salary before the first invoice cycle closed.”
— Quili Peña, Chief of Staff, HappyRobot
Looking Ahead
- Salesforce field sync: Ari now populates ARR, minutes-used, and overdue-days directly into SFDC so leadership dashboards refresh in real time.
- Global expansion: Madrid entity will mirror the U.S. flow without adding headcount.
Key Takeaways
- Automation beats headcount: Positive ROI in 30 days and >$150 k/year saved.
- Start with the biggest leak: Overages were the fastest path to recovered revenue (12 % uplift).
- Keep systems of record intact: By operating inside Stripe & Salesforce, Ari avoided the “second billing system” trap.
