Repurpose: Automate your finances with BILL

Summary

Repurpose started in 2011 with a mission to solve a problem they were seeing everywhere: plastic. Today, they manufacture compostable home and party goods like plates, picnicware, toilet paper, and trash bags. Sarah Sanders is the Senior Controller at Repurpose and one of their very first employees when the company started 11 years ago. “I’m an environmentalist and an advocate for sustainability, and I really wanted to find a path in the green space,” explains Sanders. “I didn’t anticipate working for a small business, but I love it. We’re actually making a difference.”

Repurpose is now stocked in over 17,000 stores nationwide and, most importantly, has kept more than 3.5 million pounds of waste out of landfills since their launch. With the company’s success, their headcount grew from just Sarah to 25 employees, including a now five-person finance team.

Repurpose is stocked in over 17,000 stores nationwide and, most importantly, has kept more than 3.5 million pounds of waste out of landfills since their launch.

Most of the accounting Repurpose does is centered around freight, warehousing, paying suppliers, and marketing ad spend. But they had no effective way to manage their AP, invoices, or expenses that were coming in and out of the company. To make matters worse, Sarah’s accounting team was managing everything manually. “As accountants, we were very attached to our physical records. We were printing and storing everything,” said Sarah. For a company committed to sustainability, they needed a leaner, automated, and paperless solution.

Repurpose first began with BILL for their AP management in 2019 and followed with BILL’s spend and expense management solution, Divvy for managing their budgets in 2021. “The solutions offered by BILL are unique and instrumental to Repurpose’s financial operations.”

“The solutions offered by BILL are unique and instrumental to Repurpose’s operations.”

Thanks to BILL’s AP management, Sarah’s team now works in real-time, making it easier than ever to send and approve payments. “We simply set our approvals on BILL,” says Sarah. “Anyone with permissions can send checks, too, which is helpful, as there is no waiting around for check signatures.”

BILL’s AI capability, which uses machine learning to extract, remember, and autofill invoice and vendor information, has saved Repurpose’s team two days out of every work week. “The AI pulls all the information for you and it makes it so much easier,” says Sanders. “You just review. It’s easier to cross reference than do the manual entry.

Since Repurpose saw so much success with BILL, it made sense for them to add Divvy onto their tech stack. Before, Repurpose was utilizing spreadsheets to manage all their expenses.

“We started with spreadsheets and then we migrated to Expensify, which we abandoned, because it was costly.”

Not to mention employees were using their personal cards for business purchases. “It was a headache.” They were always running into issues on the employee side, says Sarah. “Employees struggled with the program and almost always required additional support from the Accounting team.”

With Divvy, Repurpose employees now have unlimited virtual cards to make payments and Sarah has more control over their spend. “The Divvy interface makes it really easy to add card users and it’s very convenient to have all of our card information available on the portal,” said Sarah. “Divvy has been instrumental in helping us to maintain our cash flow as we often will make supplier payments with it.”

“Divvy makes it really easy to add card users and it’s very convenient to have all of our card information available on the portal.”

But the most important benefit they’ve found from Divvy is the ease of use for their employees, giving them more time to focus on the job at hand and less time on figuring out their expenses. “Making things simple for employees is also critical. Otherwise, we find ourselves challenged in getting source documents from the card users.” Sarah adds that before Divvy, trying to get receipts for purchases was often like herding cats. “[Divvy] has been really helpful in that regard. Digital records make life simpler.”

Now, with BILL and Divvy on their side, Repurpose’s accounting and expense processes are more sustainable (and leaner) than ever. “The less paper we use, the better I feel about the job we are doing to serve our overall green mission,” said Sarah. “The system has helped the Accounting team’s operations, and it has helped Repurpose grow, as well.”