This genie makes billing woes magically disappear — and won startup fintech award

Thomas Aronica was running his own credit card processing company when he noticed his small and midsize business customers had a common issue: How do we get our accounting software to talk to our payment systems, and then connect that with our internal processes? Current systems created triple work.

“I realized it was a universal problem. There was no single solution in the marketplace that met everyone’s needs across the board.”

In 2017, Aronica hired a developer to build such a product, thinking it would be a welcome addition for his payment company. Within two weeks of launching it at the end of 2018, “I knew we had a hit,” he said. “It was very apparent that what we had was something people needed.”

At that point Aronica liquidated a portion of the payments business he had founded, SkyBank Financial, to fund Biller Genie as a stand-alone business.

Biller Genie is an accounts receivable automation platform that aims to accelerate cash flow, reduce administrative work and improve the customer experience for small and midsize businesses. Aronica, Biller Genie’s CEO, says 90% of businesses worldwide still send and receive their invoices manually. For them, Biller Genie can reduce overdue billing by 40%, get invoices paid faster and save employees 10 to 20 administrative hours a week, he said.

Miami Herald Pitch Competition judges voted Biller Genie the 2020 winner of the financial technology track.

Last year, Aronica focused on perfecting the technology, hiring an executive team and building up a user base. In early 2020, Garima Shah, a former financial technology executive at some of the top payment providers in the country, joined Biller Genie as president. And Biller Genie was invited to be part of the finance conference Money2020 Startup Academy.

“We are not a replacement for QuickBooks,” said Aronica, referring to the much-used accounting software. “We are a turbocharger. We supplement the activity in those systems.

“We take [each company’s] business practices and workflows and we are able to connect all the various components of the ecosystem together to automate that in the cloud. We are designed to work within the existing infrastructure that the business is already using.” Competitors include FreshBooks, although it is a stand-alone system, and Invoice Sherpa.

Biller Genie sells a monthly subscription service. Its most popular plan is priced at $49.95, plus 0.5% per processed invoice.

Simultaneously, Biller Genie is working to grow its distribution channels, such as banks, Aronica said. “We are in diligence with a leading national bank.”

In the last month, amid the COVID-19 crisis, Biller Genie has seen an uptick in sales because businesses are starting to realize they need to focus on business continuity. That means driving more cash flow and getting money in the door, Aronica said.

“Businesses are realizing they can work with us to perform a lot of the busy work and accelerate cash flow while dedicating the [employees] and the resources of their team for success, growth and continuity.”

With 2019 as its beta-testing year, Biller Genie was giving the software away for free. But in 2020 the freebies have gone away. The startup is seeing strong month-over-month growth and exceeding pro forma projections, Aronica said.

Amid the COVID-19 crisis, consumer spending is obviously down, which would impact a product like Biller Genie. But Aronica said so far Biller Genie has seen an uptick in sales growth. Clients that were on the fence are now seeing a need for it.

“I think coming out of this you will see continued consolidation in the payments business, which will present opportunities for us to enhance distribution.”

To fund the venture, Biller Genie is seeking to raise $3 million from friends and family, including strategic partners and advisors, he said. “We are a third of the way through the round and hope to close this summer.”

Aronica built his first payments processing company during the Great Recession. “If I pull it off again, we’ll write a book about it.”

This story was originally published May 18, 2020 at 6:00 AM with the headline "This genie makes billing woes magically disappear — and won startup fintech award."