How Thaxton & Associates Cut Accounts Payable Processing Time by 40% Using Melio
The Challenge
Thaxton & Associates — an independent insurance brokerage — was managing vendor and carrier payments through a manual, cheque-heavy accounts payable process. As a small brokerage managing client premiums, carrier remittances, and vendor invoices, the volume of payment transactions was substantial relative to the size of the team. Each payment cycle required manual data entry, cheque preparation, and physical mailing — a process that consumed significant staff time and introduced delay between invoice receipt and payment execution. The manual nature of the process created exposure to error and made it difficult to maintain clean payment records for the audit trail that insurance regulatory environments require. Finance staff were spending a disproportionate share of their time on payment administration rather than on client-facing or revenue-generating work.
The Solution
Thaxton & Associates implemented Melio's accounts payable platform, replacing manual cheque preparation with digital payment workflows. Vendor and carrier payments could be initiated and tracked through a single platform, with payment status visible in real time. The platform supported multiple payment methods — ACH bank transfer and card — giving the firm flexibility to pay vendors in the format they preferred while maintaining a digital audit trail of every transaction. Bill management was centralised, reducing the risk of missed or duplicated payments, and payment history was accessible for reconciliation without manual record assembly.
The Outcome
Accounts payable processing time fell by 40%, recovering staff hours previously consumed by manual cheque preparation and payment tracking. The reduction in processing time translated directly into capacity available for client-facing work — a meaningful shift in a small brokerage where every hour of administrative overhead competes with revenue-generating activity. Payment accuracy improved through the elimination of manual data entry steps, and the digital payment record gave the firm a cleaner audit trail for regulatory purposes than the cheque-based system it replaced. Vendor relationships benefited from more predictable, faster payment cycles.
Strategic Takeaway
Thaxton & Associates' case is representative of a pattern common in insurance brokerages and other financial intermediaries: high payment transaction volume relative to headcount, combined with regulatory requirements for clean audit trails, makes manual cheque-based AP disproportionately expensive to run. A 40% time reduction on payment processing may not sound dramatic, but in a firm of this size, it represents a meaningful reallocation of capacity. The insurance brokerage context also adds a compliance dimension: digital payment records that are searchable, timestamped, and exportable serve the regulatory audit function better than paper cheque records, making the operational improvement and the compliance improvement the same investment.
- In financial intermediaries with high payment transaction volume relative to headcount, manual AP processes consume a disproportionate share of capacity — digital payment platforms recover that time at low switching cost.
- Regulatory audit requirements in insurance and financial services environments create a compliance case for digital payment records that doesn't exist in non-regulated industries: a searchable, timestamped payment history is a regulatory asset, not just an operational convenience.
- Payment process improvements in small brokerages have an outsized ROI because the staff performing AP work are typically the same staff handling client and revenue tasks — every hour recovered from payment administration is an hour available for billable or growth-oriented work.
See how Melio can help your business address similar challenges.
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