QBR Media brought billing and collections into a shared operating system

Key outcomes

• Customer growth supported: 250% in under one year
• Invoice generation: From hours, sometimes days, to 10–15 minutes, reported by QBR's founder
• Late or noncompliant payment exposure: Under 5% of MRR

Context

QBR Media's billing process had become a constraint on growth. As the customer base grew 250% in under a year, people and process quality became the bottleneck.

Finance was being managed through an outsourced function, Google Sheets, inboxes, and manually populated QuickBooks Online templates. The process was difficult to trust, difficult to manage, and increasingly expensive in attention. Every new customer added more contracts, pricing details, invoice work, and collection follow-up; every exception introduced a new risk of delay or error.

Dagny built a billing operating system that turned fragmented finance handoffs into a visible, accountable finance hub.

Fragmented billing

1. Contract
2. Manual records
3. Invoice entry
4. QBO template
5. Payment follow-up

The old process had several recurring problems:

• Contract and billing details were distributed across spreadsheets and other systems.
• Invoice data had to be manually translated into accounting templates.
• Invoice generation consumed hours, sometimes days, of concentrated effort.
• Open invoices, dunning, and payment follow-up depended on manual tracking.
• QBR Media had no single, reliable view of records, approvals, invoices, exceptions, and collections.

The billing system

Dagny started with the operating record: the customer contract, the billing details, the pricing rules, and the exceptions needed to make an invoice accurate.

From there, QBR Media migrated from a spreadsheet-led workflow to a managed billing operating system on Dagny Rails. The system combined a visible operating UI, agentic invoice creation, human approval gates, and ongoing monitoring.

1. Structured contract and billing infrastructure

Customer agreements, critical billing fields, pricing structures, and exceptions were organized into a reliable system of record. This created the foundation for more consistent billing across customers with different pricing and structuring needs.

2. A managed billing operating system

The team moved away from manually moving data from Google Sheets into QuickBooks Online templates. Dagny Rails became the place to create, validate, review, approve, and track invoices.

3. Human-gated agentic invoice automation

Agentic systems handled repeatable invoice work while QBR Media retained explicit human approval at the moments that required judgment and accountability.

1. Draft
2. Validate
3. Approve
4. Send to QBO

4. Standardized invoices and collections

After the core billing foundation was in place, Dagny standardized invoice templates and collection processes so billing communications and follow-up were more consistent.

5. Payment visibility and escalation

Dagny added payment-arrival alerts from email, open-invoice tracking, dunning reminders, and clear escalation paths for non-payment or noncompliance. Owners and account managers could see what required action and act before a missed payment turned into a larger issue.

1. Expected
2. Received
3. Reconciled
4. Escalate

Connected tools

Drive→, then Database→, then Dagny Rails→, then QuickBooks

• Slack alerts + approvals

The connected tools operate as one workflow with shared context and clear ownership.

Results

250% customer growth supported in under one year

The billing operating system scaled with QBR Media's expanding customer base without requiring the team to recreate the process for each new customer.

Invoice generation reduced to 10–15 minutes

Niccolò Gloazzo, QBR Media's founder, reports that invoice generation moved from hours, sometimes days, to 10–15 minutes. The timing reflects Niccolò's reported experience.

Late and noncompliant payment exposure reduced to under 5% of MRR

With standardized collections, payment-arrival alerts, dunning automation, and escalation paths, late and noncompliant payment exposure fell from a historical level above 30% of MRR to under 5% of MRR, at least an 83% improvement versus the historical baseline.

Before and after

• Before: Manual, spreadsheet-led invoice preparation

• After: Automated invoice creation with validation and human approval gates

• Before: Billing details distributed across tools and people

• After: A managed UI with visibility into records, approvals, invoices, and exceptions

• Before: New contracts manually interpreted and configured

• After: Contract parsing and structured setup across multiple pricing schemas

• Before: Manual dunning and payment follow-up

• After: Payment alerts, standardized collections, and owner/account-manager escalation paths

• Before: Growth increased operational pressure and quality risk

• After: Repeatable billing infrastructure that scales as new customers are added

Customer voice

“Dagny automated critical financial workflows - from new contracts and billing changes to invoicing and AR - with the accuracy and visibility we need to protect client trust. Invoice generation alone went from hours, sometimes days, to just 10–15 minutes.”

Niccolò Gloazzo, Founder, QBR Media

Takeaway

Dagny helped QBR Media turn billing from a recurring manual bottleneck into operating infrastructure: structured enough to scale, automated enough to create capacity, and human-gated enough to remain trusted.