Mihir Deo's co-founder Kristina had a theory: if you could get the invoice right at creation, collecting on it downstream becomes a fundamentally different problem. Less chasing. Less context-switching. Less "wait, what was the contract again?"

The problem was that most billing tools created invoices in isolation from the contract. Someone signs a deal, and then a finance person re-keys the terms into Stripe or QuickBooks, hoping they got the schedule right. By the time that invoice goes unpaid and lands on a collections team's desk, nobody remembers what was actually agreed.

That's why Invoice Butler partnered with Measure.

The connection

The introduction happened through Paramark. Their CEO, Pranav Piyush, had worked with Measure's co-founders at Dropbox and chose Measure from day one over Stripe Billing. When Invoice Butler was building their first integrations, Pranav mentioned that the billing layer they were building on top of was worth a conversation.

"We built an integration with Measure and the API was very, very seamless to work with," Mihir says. "Since then we've had a fair amount of shared customers."

That was the beginning. Now, whenever Invoice Butler's customers ask who to use for billing, the answer is always the same.

What actually happens when both systems are connected

A salesperson sends a proposal through Measure's CPQ. The customer signs. Measure generates invoices on the right schedule, with the right amounts, tied directly to what was agreed in the contract.

Then Invoice Butler picks up. If an invoice goes unpaid past terms, they step in as a white-labeled collections team. Emails, texts, phone calls if needed. If the customer uses a supplier portal like Coupa or Reba, Invoice Butler fills it out. When payment lands, it reflects in both systems.

It sounds straightforward. Mihir is the first to say it isn't.

"It sounds very simple," he says. "But it's actually a very hard problem to solve, which is why a lot of humans are manually doing it."

The key insight is what disappears: the billing clerk who manually creates invoices from signed contracts. The collections specialist who chases unpaid ones. The context gets lost between "what was agreed" and "what was billed." With Measure handling the contract-to-invoice chain and Invoice Butler handling the invoice-to-cash chain, the whole workflow runs without adding headcount.

Dockwa: the proof

Dockwa builds software for marinas. They'd been on Recurly (which they didn't love) and were looking at Stripe (which was quoting them a lot of money). Their customers are boaters and marina operators. Not the kind of people who sit at laptops refreshing their accounts payable queue.

"Sometimes you need to text people to pay their invoice," Mihir explains. "Sometimes you need to call. It's not that they don't want to pay. They just need to get alerted."

With Measure handling CPQ, billing, and revenue recognition, and Invoice Butler handling the collection side, Dockwa's finance team hasn't added headcount as they've grown. The invoices are right because they're generated directly from the contract. The collections are effective because Invoice Butler has the full context of what was agreed.

When a boater calls and says "is this charge legit?" Invoice Butler can pull the original contract from Measure and resolve it without a human at Dockwa getting involved.

What makes this a real partnership

Mihir draws a line: "There are fake partnerships and there are real partnerships. A fake partnership is when you make one announcement and then nothing happens."

The Measure and Invoice Butler relationship works differently. When Dockwa was getting set up, all three teams were in a single Slack channel. Not a handoff but a shared effort. Mihir's co-founder Kristina, and Measure’s co-founders Ruchi and Aswin, along with both engineering teams are in a shared channel where API updates, product changes, and roadmap visibility flow both ways.

"Being open and transparent about what you're building is super, super important," Mihir says. "No one needs to be too close to the chest because you're trying to help the customer. It's not about you."

The referral motion is organic. Invoice Butler doesn't pitch Measure because there's a revenue share. They recommend it because the integration makes their own product work better. When the invoice is generated correctly from the source contract, Invoice Butler's job becomes collection rather than forensics.

Why Mihir keeps recommending Measure

When asked what makes him comfortable sending customers to Measure, he talks about the product first.

"There are tools out there that market really well, but there's not a lot that focus on product as much as Measure does."

Then responsiveness. "Whenever things need to be fixed or built, the founders are immediately available to respond. And if they're not able to fix it, they're transparent about where priorities lie."

Then discipline. "Given that the team isn't playing the venture-backed game, it allows them to be more considerate about their choices. Instead of promising the world to everybody and not meeting the bar."

And finally, the math. "Instead of having to hire a headcount for billing and collections, you get an entire team at a fraction of the cost. The firepower relative to how much you have to spend, the ROI is just ridiculous."

Best in class, not all in one

Both companies share the same philosophy: do one thing well instead of doing everything poorly.

"If someone asks us, why don't you build a CPQ?" Mihir says. "Well, that means we're not going to be focused on making sure the money actually gets into your bank account. And same on the Measure end. If they're focusing on texting or calling outside of billing and CPQ, both companies get torn on their product roadmap."

He's seen the alternative play out. "We've seen tools fall by the wayside because they tried to do too much at once. Having best in class for both, which is still cheaper and faster than hiring humans to do this, that is the net goal."

When to bring in both

Mihir's trigger signal is specific: "When contracts are getting more complex and the head of finance or their analyst is just looking at the contract and sending out an invoice in QuickBooks or Stripe, and it's getting to be too much with that individual."

His advice on timing is counterintuitive. Some companies think they need to lock in their pricing before investing in billing infrastructure. Mihir disagrees. "The reality is you're always going to be changing your pricing. Just because you changed your pricing doesn't mean you don't want to collect on the revenue you were collecting before."

If you're past product-market fit and your finance person is still manually creating invoices from signed contracts, you're already late. Measure gets the invoice right. Invoice Butler gets it paid.

Learn more about Invoice Butler for your business. 

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