How Thaxton & Associates Uses Melio to Reduce Bill Pay Time by 40%
40%
Less time
Spent on accounts payable
80 hrs / week
Time Saved
For bookkeeping team
$12K / month
Money saved
By digitizing AP
Meet Thaxton & Associates
Thaxton & Associates is a California-based insurance brokerage firm specializing in providing asset protection for franchised automobile dealerships. The company insures every type of car franchise and services over 400 dealerships across the U.S. Many of the firm’s clients have been in business for at least 20 years.
Michael T. Thaxton, the firm’s president, founded Thaxton & Associates in 1999 to provide a full range of insurance and related services to the automotive market. A 25-year veteran in the insurance and finance industry, Michael says his hobby is cars, but his real passion is business.
What Michael enjoys the most during his day-to-day is stepping out of the office, seeing clients, and visiting car dealerships. “There are things that you learn every time you go out there,” he said. “Or there’s a new car that you haven’t seen before.”
“Melio helps my company be more successful. Plain and simple. It’s been a money saver and it’s been a time saver. Melio, for me, is a company that is very much synergistic with how Thaxton & Associates does business. They really listen to the types of needs that we actually have and they start implementing.”
The challenge
According to Michael, one of Thaxton & Associates’ most significant challenges was dealing with the administrative aspects of the business. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense for me to be sitting around four to five hours a day on payables when I can be out generating revenue for the company,” he said.
Before Melio, Thaxton & Associates handled bills using a completely manual process and didn’t do well well in integrating technology into its accounts payable process. Michael found this to be very frustrating. “It was very manual, it was emails and spreadsheets, and it took a lot of my time” he said.
The solution
Looking at all the various technological tools that were out there for managing bill pay, Thaxton & Associates found Melio was the one that offered the fullest solution for running its accounts payable efficiently and productively.
“For us, it’s about knowledge, it’s about being cutting edge, it’s about mobility, it’s about technology. People really like that and they seek that out. Before Melio, technology wasn’t something that we used very well in our accounts payable, which was frustrating for me.”
Melio’s digital features allow Michael and the team extra flexibility, letting them transact business even while outside the office. “I can make a payment on Melio over the weekend, I can make a payment at 6 o’clock in the morning, whereas before I had to wait for an accounts payable person to come in, to actually discuss something with them,” Michael said.
With Melio, Thaxton & Associates was able to cut down the time it spends on accounts payable by 40% and save $12,000 a month on related expenses. According to Michael, these savings are on top of the fact he no longer has to deal with the busy work of making payments, making him available to look at the big picture and create more business for the company.
“Melio helps us be more successful by streamlining our accounts payable division and soon to be our accounts receivable division,” he said.
