Streamlining procurement processes: A success story with Doximity and Airbase.

Public company Doximity has transformed its procurement — thanks to Airbase’s Guided Procurement module. With Guided Procurement, Doximity has struck that important balance.

“The biggest thing for me is I need to have controls, but I also want employees to have an enjoyable experience,” Doximity’s Senior Director of Accounting, Alexander Schlick, told Airbase’s VP of Marketing, Michael Freeman. Speaking with Michael at a recent Ascent webinar, Alex explained the challenges Doximity faced with procurement and how Airbase has helped. 

The challenge of modern procurement.

Procurement is a complex process that requires careful management to combine control with operational efficiency. Many companies struggle to find a solution that meets their specific needs, especially mid-market and early-enterprise organizations. 

These companies often lack the resources to invest in a dedicated procurement team or the budget to implement large-scale procurement software platforms like Coupa. 

In his fast-moving organization, Alex faced a dilemma:

“On the one hand, you want to enable as much spend as you can and make it easy as business owners. On the other side, they can’t spend on anything, so you have to have a very controlled environment.” 

Doximity’s journey to Airbase.

Doximity faced significant challenges around company spending before implementing Airbase’s corporate card program nearly five years ago. As the most extensive network for healthcare professionals in the U.S., Doximity has complex spending requirements that presented several challenges. 

“We had business owners across the organization with cards that all flowed through the same account with a high level of spend,” Alex explained. “The finance team had to sort through all that spend, categorize it, and make sure it was authorized.” 

After getting its card spend under control with Airbase corporate cards, Doximity added AP Automation to its Airbase platform. But with a small finance team, many compliance needs as a public company, and no dedicated procurement function, Doximity still needed a solution that could distribute the procurement responsibility across different departments without adding headcount.

“We have a lean team mentality. We don’t like to spend when we don’t have to,” Alex said. The result, however, was a lot of wasted time for finance.

Fortunately, Doximity had heard from Airbase CEO, Thejo Kote, that a procurement module was coming, and when Guided Procurement launched, Doximity was eager to get on board.

“One of the happiest moments of my accounting career was when Airbase reached out and said Guided Procurement was going live.”

Benefits and results.

According to Alex, implementing Airbase’s Guided Procurement module at Doximity has yielded significant benefits. Employees now have a one-stop solution for all spending needs, eliminating the need for multiple point solutions. The centralized system has improved efficiency by reducing the need for manual information gathering and tracking through email. Real-time reporting and customizable workflows have empowered employees to quickly and easily track the progress of their requests, leading to greater accountability and control.

The change has also improved the spending process for employees. 

“When we first went live with Airbase, folks were hesitant, but within a couple of months, they had the power to continue to spend and also real-time reporting for their spending,” says Alex.

“One thing I really appreciate is we don’t really have to do much training. I get very limited questions from employees — the tool just guides you through it.” 

He also praised the fast implementation and ability to build a product that fits Doximity’s specific needs. Even better, stakeholders in other departments were thrilled with the easy transition. The IT admin was impressed that the Jira integration was up and running within 30 minutes. 

The finance team really appreciates that simplicity. “Having to code manually off an Excel spreadsheet will make you pull your hair out. With Airbase, it is all syncing through in the background, so folks are spending and it’s syncing automatically based on pre-set rules that you already have.”

Michael explained that those streamlined, automated processes make Guided Procurement a perfect fit for mid-market to early-enterprise companies that, unlike Doximity, have a procurement team in place. By taking over and automating the transactional processes, Guided Procurement helps procurement team members focus on strategy and sourcing.

Unlocking the value of procurement. 

Alex named several other benefits of Airbase and Guided Procurement:

More spend under management: This is big for the cost-conscious Doximity team, as they’re always looking for ways to control spending. 

Flexibility: The ability to customize the workflows helps Doximity to move quickly. It’s possible to arrange approval milestones in a sequential order if needed, but they can also have accounting, FP&A, and legal review at the same time. 

A deep NetSuite integration: Doximity has a lot of pre-paid expenses and needs them to be reflected correctly in NetSuite. Airbase’s NetSuite integration gives them access to the library of amortization schedules easily and, most importantly, accurately. Alex added that in five years using Airbase, he’s never seen a difference between NetSuite and Airbase’s data.

Monetizing AP: Alex says Airbase’s cashback feature has turned his team into a profit center. “We actually make money back from Airbase each month.” The easiest thing is that Airbase actually lets them know which payments accept virtual cards. 

A cleaner audit trail: Airbase’s ability to automatically create an audit trail for every transaction is essential for Doximity — and their auditors appreciate it. 

“Our auditors have said Airbase is one of the best tools that they work with,” said Alex. 

A shift in spend culture: Being able to track their procurement activity has helped employees be more accountable for their spend. “Aibase not only allows them to spend, but lets them see what their spend is,” Alex said.

A faster close: The continuous sync with Airbase has contributed to a dramatic reduction in the time-to-close. When Alex started, Doximity’s close was over 20 days, but now it’s down to four or five days. 

The future of procurement.

The success of Doximity’s integration with Airbase demonstrates the power of Guided Procurement in streamlining the procure-to-pay process. 

Guided Procurement holds tremendous potential to revolutionize how organizations manage their procurement operations as companies continue to embrace automation and digitization. The ability to customize workflows, automate expense reporting, and synthesize data from various sources will enable companies to make informed decisions, enhance compliance, and optimize spending.

Airbase’s Guided Procurement has emerged as a game-changer for organizations like Doximity by offering a comprehensive and customizable solution. Let us show you how it works — ask for a demo!

Watch the recorded webinar with Doximity here.