90% faster invoice processing: no extra staff
BDR is a business consulting firm that helps HVAC, plumbing and other trades businesses improve operations and profitability. They wanted to offer accounting services as a product, not just as manual, hour-by-hour work.
AI solution
In partnership with Contextual, BDR launched Sidekick, an AI-powered accounts payable workflow that turns manual Accounts Payable work into a simple, client-facing service.
Results
- 90% reduction in invoice processing time
- New AI-powered recurring revenue stream
- Quick reviews & approval
- Scalable delivery without added headcount
AP work was too costly to scale up
BDR wanted to offer accounts payable services to small trades businesses, but the work was heavily manual and hard to grow. Human-driven invoice entry, multi-step workflows and slow processing made it costly to deliver AP at scale.
Manual
invoice entry
Multiple
steps & handoffs in AP workflow
Time-consuming
sync with QuickBooks
Accountants
hiring more was the only way to scale
Contextual Delivery Lead
Sidekick: AI that turns AP into a recurring revenue product
Contextual and BDR created Sidekick, a client-facing AP workflow that takes care of the heavy lifting and keeps humans in control. Instead of typing in invoices all day, teams now review and approve clean, AI-prepared entries in a fraction of the time.
Sidekick is designed around how BDR and their clients already work, with QuickBooks at the core and simple touchpoints for field teams and bookkeepers. This makes it easy to roll out across many small businesses without complex change management.
Ingest
Invoice ingestion with three-way matching
Identify
Photo capture & automatic matching of packing slips to POs
Approve
Human review and approval with no manual re-keying
Post
Clean & accurate push into QuickBooks
From idea to live product in weeks
Built on the Contextual platform, Sidekick was assembled and brought to market quickly as a branded BDR product.
Week 1–2
Map AP process and define user profile
Week 3–9
Build, integrate, test with clients
Week 10
Launch
Week 10+
Market to customer base
From a service line to a growth product
Sidekick turned a manual AP service into a scalable, recurring revenue product that BDR can sell to many clients. AP is now faster, more accurate and easier to deliver, without hiring more accountants.
90%
increase in invoice processing time
Rapid
review and approval
$$$
new recurring revenue stream
ROI
for customers through meaningful time savings
Ready to see what AI can do for your business?
