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CASE STUDY

How Chen Digital recovered $47,200 in 90 days

A 12-person marketing agency eliminated manual collections entirely and reduced days sales outstanding from 52 to 28 days using DuePilot.

$47K

RECOVERED

CD

Chen Digital Agency

Full-service digital marketing agency based in Austin, TX. 12 employees, $2.4M annual revenue. Serves mid-size B2B clients with average invoice size of $4,500 on net-30 terms.

Industry

Marketing Agency

Team Size

12 people

Revenue

$2.4M/yr

Invoices/month

40-60

The challenge

Sarah Chen founded her agency in 2019 and grew it to $2.4M in revenue by 2025. But as her client list expanded, so did her accounts receivable problem. At any given time, she had roughly $47,000 in overdue invoices — nearly 20% of her monthly revenue stuck in limbo.

Her office manager Janet spent 3-4 hours every week manually opening QuickBooks, identifying overdue invoices, drafting reminder emails from scratch, and tracking who replied. Sarah stepped in personally for escalated cases — conversations she described as "the most uncomfortable part of running my business" because she needed to maintain client relationships while demanding payment.

"Last year we wrote off $25,000. That's not a line item — that's a person's salary. Every dollar we write off is a dollar we already earned and delivered work for. It's infuriating, but I didn't have time to chase it."

— Sarah Chen, CEO

The results

BEFORE DUEPILOT

Overdue Balance

$47,200

Avg Days Sales Outstanding

52 days

Weekly Collections Work

4+ hours

Annual Write-offs

$25,000

AFTER DUEPILOT (90 DAYS)

Recovered in Month 1

$12,940

DSO After 90 Days

28 days

Weekly Collections Work

0 hours

Projected Annual Write-offs

$4,200

The journey

Day 1

Connected QuickBooks in 8 minutes

Sarah connected her QBO account during lunch. DuePilot synced 247 invoices and 64 customers instantly. The AR Analysis screen showed a Health Score of D — $47,200 overdue across 14 invoices.

Day 2

AI generated first sequences

DuePilot created personalized email sequences for the 5 most overdue invoices. Sarah reviewed the AI-generated emails, made one tone adjustment ("keep it warmer for Pinnacle — they're a longtime client"), and approved all 5.

Week 1

$4,500 recovered — first payment influenced

Acme Corp paid Invoice #1234 ($4,500) two days after receiving the Stage 1 gentle reminder. The "Influenced Recoveries" counter updated in real-time. Sarah's office manager Janet noticed and asked, "Wait, did Acme just... pay?"

Week 2

Reply Intelligence catches a dispute

BlueStar LLC replied to a reminder: "This amount is incorrect — we agreed on $6,800, not $7,200." DuePilot classified the reply as a dispute, paused the sequence, and alerted Sarah with a summary. She resolved it in one phone call and adjusted the invoice.

Month 1

$12,940 recovered — Health Score improved to C+

By the end of month one, 8 of 14 overdue invoices had been paid. Three were in active sequences with promised payment dates. DuePilot had sent 24 emails total — all from Sarah's Gmail, all looking like she wrote them personally.

Month 3

$47,200 recovered — DSO dropped from 52 to 28 days

The entire overdue backlog was resolved. New invoices were being collected an average of 28 days after issue (down from 52). Sarah's Health Score hit B+. Annual write-off projection dropped from $25,000 to $4,200.

"DuePilot didn't just recover our money — it recovered my peace of mind. I don't dread Monday mornings anymore because I know the awkward conversations are being handled. Professionally, automatically, and better than I ever did manually."

SC

Sarah Chen

CEO, Chen Digital Agency

Key takeaways

  • Time to first recovery: 5 days. Sarah saw her first influenced payment within a week of connecting QuickBooks.
  • AI emails outperformed manual. DuePilot's personalized sequences had a 73% open rate and 34% click-through rate — far higher than Janet's manual emails.
  • Reply Intelligence prevented escalation. When BlueStar disputed an invoice amount, DuePilot caught it instantly instead of sending embarrassing follow-ups for the wrong amount.
  • ROI was obvious from day one. At $199/month, DuePilot cost $2,388 for the year. It recovered $47,200. That's a 19.7x return.
  • Zero learning curve. Sarah's only input was connecting QBO and adjusting one customer's tone preference. Everything else was autopilot.

Ready to recover your cash?

Join Chen Digital and 500+ other businesses that stopped chasing and started collecting.

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