When you think of bookkeeping, the words “amazing,” “life-saving,” and “love” probably don’t come to mind. Yet that’s what our customers regularly say about Pilot. 

In fact, our team regularly gets love notes from customers when they see their first customized report. The love is so strong, our customers sang our praises from the rooftops with our recent billboards.

Here are just a few of my personal favorites:

• “Wow is an understatement—I’m so excited to finally get this transparency into our books.”
• “Can’t stop raving about your product. It’s a painless solution to a painful problem.”
• “Light years better than any other service.” 

Who knew bookkeeping could spark such a reaction? Well, my founders and I had an inkling. Bookkeeping continues to be an unseen and unsolved pain for so many businesses.

Innovating the finance stack

Three years ago, we started Pilot to help owners grow their business with a clear picture of their financials, starting with bookkeeping. Having built (and sold) two companies before, my founding team and I intimately knew the challenge of managing books.

Though it’s not the most exciting service, bookkeeping is ripe for innovation: It tracks the lifeblood of every business, it’s currently done entirely manually and riddled with common human-made errors, and it’s a frustrating time sink for business owners and operators. The opportunity was clear.

Pilot solves these problems by pairing you with your dedicated finance expert who delivers personal support, assisted by software that automatically eliminates common errors. The result is that customers get remarkable clarity into their finances, based on accurate reporting and dedicated care. In fact, we often help businesses save thousands by identifying inconsistencies or third-party errors.

Fast-forward to today, and nearly 1,000 customers love using Pilot for bookkeeping and tax. In fact, most of our growth has been from word-of-mouth referrals. Our combination of an expert team and software allows us to maintain unmatched accuracy and outstanding service at scale. Each month, we process: 

• Over $130 million in company expenses, 
• Over $50 million in customer revenue, and 
• Approximately 200,000 transactions

But amidst all our growth, what’s one thing our customers didn’t love? Well, that we couldn’t handle even more of their pressing financial needs. 

So, we listened to the feedback. In addition to our core bookkeeping and tax service products, we built three new services to help businesses with their full finance stack: 

• Pilot R&D Credit 
• Pilot CFO Services 
• Pilot Extended Services

Claim your R&D tax credit with Pilot

Over 70% of our customers are eligible for the R&D tax credit, which is why it’s a priority for us to support them. Worth up to $250,000 per year, the credit can help small businesses and startups potentially save millions. Created to encourage innovation, the IRS credits companies that invest in research and development activities. 

The challenge, however, is that many companies don’t know they qualify or how to get it. Even if they knew how to claim it, the process is tedious and requires intensive documentation—especially in the case of an IRS audit. 

That’s why we handle the claiming process from beginning to end. What sets Pilot apart is that we:

• Maximize credit savings by identifying qualifying expenses, because we know your books intimately
• Provide meticulous documentation to build your case and protect you against possible audits 
• Work with third parties like your payroll provider to accurately apply the credit

Our goal is to help even more innovative businesses qualify, claim valuable funds, and fuel their growth.

Scale your business with sophisticated CFO Services

Not every growing business has a CFO. But there are milestones and events where businesses need the advanced financial guidance a CFO and their team provide. 

We’ve learned this first-hand. Since the earliest days of Pilot, we’ve offered above-and-beyond expertise and service, from feedback on board decks to fundraising guidance. Given the significant need in the market, we’ve formalized our CFO support to meet popular demand. We now provide a wider range of offerings to serve even more companies. 

Our expert team of CFOs help companies with: 

• Strategic financial assessments and management discussion and assessments (MD&A)
• Financial planning and analysis (FP&A)
• Board support & financial operations
• Fundraising support, from pitch deck creation to investor models

Led by a CFO who took Dropbox from Series B to IPO, our team has extensive finance and VC experience to offer to customers. Plus, we know your books from the ground up, which puts us in a unique position to work quickly and cost-effectively. 

Outsource a full-stack finance team with Pilot’s Extended Services

Along with our CFO services, our customers have also asked for help with additional bookkeeping-adjacent activities and we delivered! Pilot can now assist customers with everything from creating monthly reports, generating invoices, following up with customers for collections, initiating payments to a vendor, and paying bills. 

Instead of managing multiple vendors, customers now have one point of contact with Pilot to help their daily financial operations run efficiently. Whatever the issue is, Pilot can tackle it. 

Get out of the back office—and back to running your business

Built on the foundation of bookkeeping and tax, these three new offerings are a step towards our ultimate goal of becoming a one-stop solution for startup and small business financial services. Our vision is a future where founders, entrepreneurs, and owners can get the financial clarity and sound financial operations they need to grow their thriving businesses. It’s a future where managing finances continues to be “awesome,” “life-saving,” and “light-years better than before.”  

Get your finances right with Pilot.

Waseem Daher is the CEO and co-founder of Pilot.