Gardyn helps their customers live healthier by growing nutritious, delicious food in their own homes. Their motto says it all: “Grow Healthy, Live Tasty.” As a startup, everyone at the company is passionate about their mission—and they don’t have time for distractions.
That’s why paper-based, manual financial processes die on the vine at Gardyn. Instead, they have automated their finances with BILL Accounts Payable and BILL Spend & Expense. BILL’s financial automation platform helped Gardyn streamline payments and manage vendor relationships more effectively, freeing up time to focus on growing their business.
Gardyn’s business really took off during the pandemic as people focused on home projects. But when the microchip shortage hit their supply chain, it threatened to derail this huge growth opportunity. To continue producing grow kits to meet the surging demand, Gardyn needed to switch vendors frequently, depending on who had the parts they needed. Quazi Khaled, CFO of Gardyn, recalls, “During the pandemic, we needed a lot of vendors who made electronics. We had to pay them quickly—and in advance—so we could secure the electronics we needed. BILL gave us that ability.”
Departments outside of Finance also rely on BILL to manage vendors. As Chris Seahorn, Chief Growth Officer at Gardyn, explains, “For me, in Marketing, it’s a lot easier to negotiate deals when people are not wondering where their payments are. BILL really helps us build and preserve those relationships.” Seahorn has also noticed the speed with which invoices get paid faster with BILL and adds, “Our vendors really like it.”
BILL also simplifies accounts payable (AP) processes through automation. Once Gardyn receives invoices at their dedicated AP email address, they are automatically scanned into BILL. Then the invoices are routed for approval.
“With BILL, the approval process is very streamlined, governance is very streamlined,” says Khaled. “Being a fully remote company, it’s great because we don't have to worry about approvals. No matter where an approver is in the world, approving an invoice is easy.”
“With BILL, the approval process is very streamlined, governance is very streamlined.” – Quazi Khaled, Chief Financial Officer, Gardyn
As a company with a fully remote workforce, the ability to perform finance functions virtually with BILL is a huge advantage. Says Khaled, “As a virtual company, BILL works great for us. It is so easy to add users, to approve invoices, to make monthly or weekly payment runs.”
Gardyn especially loves BILL’s mobile option. Khaled takes full advantage of the BILL app to complete his workflows: “The BILL app works great. I can troubleshoot or approve in the app, whatever I need to do, whether I am traveling or not.”
“When I get a push notification for BILL, it’s so easy. When I'm on the run, I can see it and approve it right from the mobile app.“ — Chris Seahorn, Chief Growth Officer, Gardyn
As an approver in BILL, Gardyn’s Chief Growth Officer Chris Seahorn loves the ability to review invoices on the go: “The BILL mobile app is so nice. In a world where you have Slack, email, notifications from other apps, it's really hard sometimes to keep on top of every communication. But when I get a push notification for BILL, it’s so easy. When I'm on the run, I can see it and approve it right from the mobile app. That is very, very helpful. I haven’t seen that level of integration from a lot of other partners.”
Gardyn also has contract employees all over the world, from Brazil to Bangladesh. “It takes very little time to onboard them in BILL because we are also paying them in BILL,” Khaled says.
BILL has also eliminated the need for Gardyn to deal with financial paperwork, including everything from opening bill envelopes to signing paper checks to keeping paper records in filing cabinets.
Seahorn appreciates the benefits of BILL’s digital AP. “I've worked in places where my CFO would print out all the invoices and put them on my desk, and I would go through and sign them and initial them. And then three months later, to figure out if an invoice was paid, he had to go dig through filing cabinets to find a paper record of it. With BILL, if there are ever disputes, we have a digital track record of all the invoices that is easy to verify.”
“I love the way we have payments set up with BILL. It’s been a huge step up compared to paper-based or manual processes.” — Quazi Khaled, Chief Financial Officer, Gardyn
The digital recordkeeping makes reviews and compliance a breeze, which is especially important for Gardyn because they have so many international transactions. They manufacture their products in Malaysia and China, and BILL makes it easy to pay vendors around the world in multiple currencies. BILL also simplifies the process of reviewing those transactions and automating the cadence of governance.
“I love the way we have payments set up with BILL. It’s been a huge step up compared to paper-based or manual processes,” says Khaled.
And Seahorn agrees: “BILL has been a big time saver. Sometimes I can't believe we did the paper trail as much as we did in the past. BILL has definitely been a game changer.”
Gardyn was also looking for an automated expense management system. They chose BILL Spend & Expense to help them manage their spend, especially their advertising budget. With BILL Spend & Expense, they no longer have to prefund their expense account and worry about tedious wire transfers when making large advertising payments. They have a $2.5 million line of credit, with a 25-day payment period, all automated by BILL Spend & Expense.
Gardyn now uses BILL Spend & Expense for a wide range of expenses, including events, travel, recurring charges, and even media. “[BILL Spend & Expense] helps us manage our budget easily,” says Khaled.
BILL is saving time and money for Gardyn. In terms of cost, there are savings based on not needing additional Finance headcount to manually reconcile invoices.
In terms of time, everyone from Finance to the CEO has to spend less time dealing with invoices. “With BILL, Finance can double-check or triple-check as much as we need without having to bother our colleagues in other departments about invoices,” says Khaled.
“With BILL, Finance can double-check or triple-check as much as we need without having to bother our colleagues in other departments about invoices.” — Quazi Khaled, Chief Financial Officer, Gardyn
The efficiency and time-saving with BILL lessens distractions for the company’s leaders as they focus on growing the business.
“Being a startup, it's very important that we focus on growth, and not on non-value-added stuff like paying invoices,” says Khaled. “Dealing with the paperwork, dealing with paper invoices, it's just a waste of time, not only for Finance, but all the other stakeholders that we have.” With BILL on board, Gardyn is able to spend less time on finances, and more time growing their business.
