Robert Alvarez, BigCommerce’s two-time Austin Business Journal CFO of the Year (2011, 2013), shares how replacing manual, paper-heavy workflows with a paperless, automated back office delivered speed, control, and investor-ready reporting.
Partnering with Consero proved so effective that he “would never build [his] own finance department” to manage back-office and technology again.
The Before: Manual, Slow, and Hard to Scale
BigCommerce originally ran a hybrid model: outsourced CFO/controller with in-house AP, AR, and payroll. Transactions and approvals lagged, processes were manual, and the numbers weren’t reliable for scale. As Alvarez put it, “They handled transactions but the quality of our numbers was questionable.”
The Shift: Paperless Automation + Built-In Controls
Consero moved the company to an all-digital back office:
- AP/AR automation with faster, electronic approvals
- PO controls for spend discipline
- Travel & expense (T&E) capture via mobile (no paper receipts)
- Digital invoicing & vendor payments
- One-click document retrieval for audits and reviews
“Consero cleared the way for us by saving time, providing scalability, and more efficiency in our business processes,” Alvarez says.
Results You Can Measure
- Customer growth: Web-based storefronts for 54,000+ customers in just ~4½ years
- Financing: $75M raised (July 2013), including $40M from a firm led by Steve Case & Ted Leonsis and $35M from Larry Bohn/General Catalyst
- Operating leverage: In 2 years, BigCommerce quadrupled clients and employees and tripled revenue without linearly adding F&A headcount
- Cost & speed: Outsourcing vs. building in-house would have cost ~40% more and taken ~12 months; Consero delivered in ~4 months
- Throughput at scale: Despite rising transaction volume, Consero maintained standard timelines and turnarounds, with AP fully automated and electronic
Investor-Ready Financials & Metrics
Consero converted from cash to accrual and stood up investor-friendly financials with transparency and timeliness. “There wasn’t transparency or timeliness of reporting” before, notes finance director Zeina Charara. The team now tracks churn, CAC, and other forward-looking SaaS metrics in a more automated way and produces board-ready reports on demand.
“Consero helped us improve the timeliness, reliability, and insightfulness of our financials. We have the information we need when we need it,” says Alvarez.
What the CFO Gained
With the back office humming, Alvarez focuses on strategy: “Working with Consero lets me focus my time and energy on addressing the higher-level issues that threaten to impede our continued growth.” From one-click audit support to self-serve executive reporting, finance is now a real-time enabler, not a bottleneck.
Whether you’re a startup or a scaled enterprise, outsourcing AP/AR and modernizing finance with paperless automation, controls, and accrual-basis reporting can compress timelines, reduce cost, and elevate decision-making. For Alvarez and BigCommerce, the data and the outcomes speak for themselves.
