FinanceFlow - B2B Expense Management

The Client

Meet Sarah Chen, Founder & CEO

• Background: Former CFO at mid-size tech company, 10+ years in finance/operations. First-time founder, non-technical.
• The Problem She Saw: Traditional expense management tools were built for large enterprises. SMBs (10-100 employees) were stuck with spreadsheets or over-engineered solutions costing $50+/user/month.
• Her Vision: Build a simple, beautiful expense management tool for growing companies. Price: $10-15/user/month. Focus on ease-of-use over feature bloat.
• Why She Came to AccelMars: Had $150K seed commitment (contingent on tech DD), needed MVP in 3 months to meet investor deadline, wanted investment-grade quality, not prototype.

The Challenge

Primary Goals:

1. Build investor-ready MVP in 11 weeks
2. Pass technical due diligence (no red flags)
3. Launch with 20-30 beta customers
4. Close $150K seed funding

Technical Challenges:

1. Multi-party payments (Stripe Connect): Companies pay subscription, employees get reimbursed.
2. Bank integration (Plaid): Real-time transaction syncing, secure credentials.
3. OCR receipt scanning (AI-powered): Mobile camera → extract data → auto-categorize.
4. Multi-tenant architecture: Each company = isolated data, RBAC, audit logs.

Our Approach

Why Investment-Grade MVP (Not Lean):

• Investor deadline = needed full documentation
• Fintech = needed security audit + compliance
• Mobile critical = needed Flutter app, not just web
• Complex features = Stripe Connect + Plaid integration
• Growth plan = needed scalability roadmap (0-100K users)

Decision: Investment-Grade MVP at $32,000

Technical Solution

Architecture

We built a robust, scalable architecture using modern best-of-breed tools:

• Frontend (Web): Next.js 14 (App Router), TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, React Query.
• Mobile: Flutter 3.x (iOS + Android) for native performance and camera access.
• Backend: Next.js API Routes (serverless) with Clerk for authentication and RBAC.
• Database: PostgreSQL (via Supabase) with Row-Level Security (RLS) for multi-tenancy.
• Integrations: Stripe Connect (payments), Plaid (banking), OpenAI GPT-4 (OCR), SendGrid (email).

Key Features

1. Smart Receipt Capture: Users snap a photo, and our AI pipeline extracts merchant, date, and amount with 92% accuracy.
2. Automated Approval Workflows: Managers get instant notifications and can approve expenses with one click.
3. Real-Time Sync: Changes on the web dashboard reflect instantly on the mobile app.
4. Audit Trails: Every action is logged for compliance and security.

Results

The project was a resounding success, delivering on all key metrics:

• On-Time Delivery: Launched in 11 weeks and 2 days (98% on-time).
• Funding Secured: Sarah closed her $150K seed round just 2 weeks after launch.
• User Adoption: Onboarded 50 beta companies in the first month.
• Revenue: Reached $15K MRR within 90 days.

“AccelMars delivered exactly what they promised — an investment-ready MVP in 11 weeks. The technical documentation they created was better than what most Series A companies have. Our lead investor said, ‘This is the cleanest technical due diligence I’ve seen at this stage.’ We closed $150K two weeks after launch, and we’re already at $15K MRR. I can’t imagine having built this any other way.”

— Sarah Chen, Founder & CEO, FinanceFlow