Paywise reads the unpaid invoice where it already is.
A collection case begins with an invoice that has not been paid, and that invoice is already recorded somewhere: in the accounting and ERP system the business runs. Paywise reads it there, so nobody has to export a list and upload it again.
Paywise supports the systems its customers run, in one go
“Since integrating with Maesn, we've dramatically increased our platform adoption - supporting a wide range of accounting systems in one go. Our customers can connect their existing tools instantly, which drives engagement and makes Maesn a key part of our success strategy.”
Who Paywise is, and where Maesn sits
- Website
- paywise.de
- About Paywise
- paywise GmbH, based in Gräfelfing near Munich, combines lawyers and software developers in one company and runs the process from the first reminder through to legal enforcement. As a legal services provider it works under the German Rechtsdienstleistungsgesetz, supervised by the Bundesamt für Justiz, and it is a member of the BDIU, the German debt collection association. Its customers range from sole traders to large companies.
- Use case
- Professional online debt collection, from invoice upload through API integration to legal support. The workflow itself, independent of any one vendor, is on the debt collection page.
- Previous solution
- Manual import of unpaid invoices into the paywise platform.
- Accounting and ERP systems
- DATEV, Lexware Office, sevdesk, Sage Active and Xentral
The unpaid invoice is recorded in another company's system
Paywise needs one thing before it can do anything: the invoice that was not paid. It sits in whichever accounting and ERP system that business runs, and across the DACH region that is a different product almost every time.
The growth problem is plain. Paywise was expanding, its customers across the DACH region used a variety of accounting and ERP systems, and that made a consistent automated experience hard to offer. In a competitive market, integrations and real-time data exchange became critical rather than nice to have.
Before the integration it was a manual import of unpaid invoices into the Paywise platform. That is two people: somebody in the business exports a list, somebody uploads it, and every collection case starts one file later than it could have. The businesses Paywise serves are sole traders and small companies, so that somebody is usually the owner.
Paywise began the in-house build, with sevdesk, and stopped. What it ran into:
- Development far more complex than expected
- More resources needed than expected
- Time-to-market goals at risk
The invoice arrives before anybody thinks about uploading it
The integration unlocked three things, and they are a sequence rather than a feature list: find the overdue invoices, let the business choose, start the case from where it already is.
- ReadThe overdue invoices, out of the system they sit inAutomatically pulling lists of overdue invoices from various ERP systems.
- ChooseThe ones the business wants to act onProviding customers with a clear, user-friendly interface to select invoices from an overview.
- Hand overThe collection case, from where they already areAllowing customers to initiate the debt collection process directly from their dashboard.
The first of the three is the one that decides the other two, and it is also the one that differs most per system. An overdue invoice is a list you have to ask for correctly: which invoices, still open, past their date, in the shape that system returns them. Unified pagination and filtering is the part of Maesn that makes that one question instead of a different question per product. Measured across the connected systems, the invoice read is live today on Lexware Office, sevdesk, Sage Active and Xentral, which are four of the five Paywise publishes.
The second thing the quote points at is the connecting rather than the data. Paywise's customers are small businesses, so the integration is switched on by the owner rather than by an integration team, and it has to work at the first attempt. Unified authentication carries that, which is what “connect their existing tools instantly” means in practice.
Adoption moved, and it took less than one sprint to get there
Two things came out of it, and Paywise published both: more of its customers switched the integration on, and the whole set of systems was in place in less than one sprint.
The two belong together, and the order matters. A wide range of systems supported in one go is what makes adoption move, because a business only adopts what it can switch on with the product it already has. Doing it in less than one sprint is what made the range possible at all: the alternative, on the evidence of the sevdesk attempt, was one product per project.
Reading what is still open and deciding what to chase, before anybody is handed a case at all, is the neighbouring workflow: accounts receivable automation covers it on its own terms. Adoption that moves because a customer can switch the integration on is the outcome customer success teams are measured on.
Common questions
Which systems can Paywise read overdue invoices from?
What does the integration call?
How long did it take to build?
Paywise tried to build an integration itself first. What happened?
What changed for the businesses that use Paywise?
Is this debt collection or accounts receivable automation?
Reads the ledger through Maesn and keeps the bank side on its own connection, then writes the reconciled bookings back.Read the case study
Automates the full accounts payable cycle and posts every payment back into the customer's ERP.Read the case study
Turns tracked project time into draft invoices inside the accounting system the customer already runs.Read the case study