Shazam Accounting cuts invoice coding time with BILL AI agents

T.J. Massingill has one employee, 30 clients spread across the country, and a strong opinion about the future of accounting.

“Accountants have to stop living in the past,” says Massingill, founder of Shazam Accounting, a fully virtual firm running out of Amarillo, Texas. “Clients want to talk about their future and their best options for growth. They don't need financial historians. They need strategists.”

But recording the past which includes keying bills, coding invoices, and closing the books, is still an essential part of the job, and it can easily eat an accountant's whole week. For Shazam, the math only works if the software does the heavy lifting.

That's where BILL's Invoice Coding Agent comes in. It cuts Massingill's coding time by 75%, a margin that buys back his calendar for the forward-looking work his clients actually want.

The challenge: One person, one checkbook, and $10M

For many of Massingill's clients, the “before” picture is almost identical: one administrator collecting bills, writing checks, and sitting on the bank account, all the way up to $10 million in revenue.

“They get buried in paper,” Massingill says. “It's fine at the start, but when organizations start racing toward that $10 million mark, it's not sustainable.”

That's not just an operational risk. A single person with unchecked access to the bank account is a liability waiting to happen.

“It gives too much power to one person,” Massingill says. “Access to large sums of money doesn't guarantee good choices. Our clients need a scalable solution that deters both operational and moral failure. That's why we move them to BILL.”

The solution: An AI agent that disappears into the workflow

Massingill moves his clients onto BILL Accounts Payable, adding department leads as approvers for an automatic separation of duties. Invoices get emailed to Shazam, uploaded to BILL, routed to the right approver, and released for payment in US dollars or any of the local currencies in BILL's expanding international footprint.

“BILL is robust enough to extract the data I need automatically, but simple enough for non-accountants to engage,” Massingill says. “And for clients that pay international vendors, the local transfer option speeds up payments even more. Our vendors get paid promptly, even in foreign currency.”

The Invoice Coding Agent sits on top of that workflow, doing the work Massingill used to do by hand: pulling expense accounts from prior bills, splitting line items, and adding the coding before he even opens the bill.

“Steve Jobs said the best technology is invisible. That's what the BILL AI agent feels like,” Massingill says. “I was processing some bills this morning, and the agent had dropped down all the expense accounts that had previously been used on a bill to a vendor. I populated the amounts based on the invoice, and off we went. I didn't even stop to think about it. It's just a transparent, seamless part of the process.”

The results: 75% weekly time savings, reinvested in client strategy

“Managing AP across hundreds of monthly invoices means repetitive manual coding and constant reviews,” Massingill says. “The Invoice Coding Agent makes the majority of complex multi-line bills touchless and cuts processing time by 75% each week. That gives me the capacity and confidence to focus on the client relationship and strategic initiatives.”

That's how a two-person firm can service 30 clients across professional services, nonprofits, retail, and property management without adding headcount. Massingill has time to handle strategy as well as audits, special projects, and questions clients can't solve on their own.

“I have a system that manages all the normal stuff with BILL, so I spend my time on the exceptions,” Massingill says. “The access to my clients increases because I'm not dealing with a task list. Those are the moments when you add value.”

Those time gains accelerate at tax time. “When January rolls around, W-9s are always hectic,” Massingill says. “Any option for automating that process is very helpful. In BILL, it's just a link I click, and the vendor is contacted.”

Looking ahead

As each of Shazam's clients approaches the $10 million mark, Massingill ensures they adopt the operational discipline that growth demands. BILL helps them make that transition, especially the rapid-growth clients who are building the plane as they fly it.

“The less my clients have to think about the process, the happier they are,” Massingill says. “They want the experience of the thing being done. They pay me to get the thing done. BILL is a big part of how I do that.”

^{*Based on Shazam Accounting’s experience using BILL Accounts Payable and Invoice Coding Agent as of April 2026. Results are not guaranteed and may vary by business.}

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