Pajama Entrepreneur

Taulia is a company started in 2009 in San Francisco (with a second office in Berlin, Germany). Taulia makes software that integrates into SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) installations, but does not require additional hardware costs or long, expensive ERP implementations. Taulia’s Invoicement Suite is designed for Accounts Payable and Treasury departments in large companies. Its goal is to simplify accounts payable/invoice management and at the same time, reduce amounts paid out to suppliers. The software has three elements:

(1) Dynamic Discount Optimizer: allows companies to seek discounts from their suppliers in exchange for early payment. For example, if my company has 60-day payment terms, I can offer to pay one of my suppliers within 30 days and get a discount in exchange. Similarly, suppliers can opt for early payment and offer discounts — very handy for suppliers who have short-term cash flow problems.

(2) Accounts Payable Self-Service Portal: Accounts Payable employees spend a lot of time answering emails and phone calls from suppliers who want to know when they are getting paid, what is the status of a purchase order, etc. With the self-service portal, suppliers themselves can log on and check the status of their invoices, turn purchase orders into invoices and submit them online, find out whether the delay in payment is the result of an error in the invoice (i.e. the invoice has the wrong PO number), maintain their account information (address, phone number, email), and offer discounts for early payment (see the Dynamic Discount Optimizer in (1) above). The self-service portal releases the company’s employees from the tedious exercise of having to check on the status of invoices and payments.

(3) Analyzer: this tool gives companies insight into data such as invoice processing times, discount capture rates and more. It allows them to figure out the benefits of early payments versus the discounts they receive in exchange, among other things.

Q&A with Philip Stehlik, co-founded of Taulia

Who are the founders of Taulia? Is it self-funded?

Taulia was founded by me and Bertram Meyer. Markus Ament and Martin Quensel joined us this year (2010). Before Taulia, we had a company called Ebydos, which was acquired in 2006 by Swedish document automation firm, ReadSoft. Ebydos is best known for its Invoice Cockpit software. So we have a lot of experience in enterprise software that integrates with SAP installations in large companies. Taulia is self-funded.

Who is your target customer?

Our target customer is a large company that receives thousands of invoices, spends $10 billion (payments to suppliers) and uses SAP.

How do you make money from your software?

We charge a subscription fee and the initial cost of setting up the software. We also plan to get a percentage of the savings obtained by companies when their suppliers give them discounts via the early payment scheme.

In which countries are you focusing your sales and marketing efforts?

At present, we are focusing on the US. We have an office in Berlin so we will very shortly go into the European market. Asia and Australia will come later.