How Tavily prepared its finance ops for scale — and an acquisition

About Tavily

Tavily connects AI agents to the web, giving developers a way to bring current, relevant web information into AI applications. As AI agents increasingly need to interact with live web data, Tavily helps retrieve the information models need to generate accurate, up-to-date responses. Shai Shaick, VP Finance and Operations at Tavily, leads finance, operations, legal and HR, giving him ownership over the systems that support Tavily’s next stage of growth.

The Challenge: Time-Consuming Billing and Collections Slowed Down a Lean Team

As Tavily grew, its finance process depended on manual work across customer setup, invoice creation, sales tax review, collections follow-up, and month-end accounting. After a salesperson closed a deal, the finance team had to review the contract, create or update customer records, verify invoice line items, check tax requirements, and follow up on payment status.

“Our life was bad. We had to do everything manually. Creating a customer was time consuming, as was creating an invoice for each of them. We needed to verify a lot of the different line items and check sales tax.”

— Shai Shaick, VP Finance & Operations, Tavily

For a lean finance function, that created a growing operational burden. Shai was initially the only person in the department, but the business was moving toward a higher-volume future. Tavily needed a system that could help them scale finance operations before manual workflows became a constraint on growth.

In summation:

• Laborious customer setup required manual entry across multiple fields
• Manual invoice creation for each customer, including line item verification
• Sales tax checks had to account for customer location
• Manual collections follow-up and payment tracking
• Month-end reporting work required extra validation and calculations

Why Tabs: Automated Billing Built for a Scaling Finance Function

Shai first heard about Tabs through a conference where the two companies presented. At the time, he was running the finance function on his own and recognized that the amount of manual work was already too high for a single-person team. After seeing a demo, he saw an opportunity to reduce manual effort and build a more scalable process.

With Tabs, Tavily automated key parts of its billing and revenue workflow. Tabs helps the team identify when a contract is ready, review the invoice output, validate calculations, and send invoices to customers. When customers require portal uploads, Tavily can still download the invoice and upload it manually, while relying on Tabs for the upstream invoice generation and supporting workflow.

“I was alone in my department, and I understood there was too much work and I’m just one person. Then I heard about Tabs and saw that it could really help me and save time. That’s the reason I decided to adopt it.”

— Shai Shaick, VP Finance & Operations, Tavily

Contract-Driven Automated Billing Workflows

Tabs helps Tavily reduce the manual work required to create customers and invoices. Instead of entering customer details, checking every field, and then building invoices line by line, Tavily can use Tabs to generate invoice outputs automatically and review them before sending.

Billing activity is automatically translated from contract details. Tavily can move from signed deal to invoice with less manual coordination. Shai’s team can review the contract output inside the workflow and confirm calculations before the invoice goes out.

Collections Automation

Tabs supports follow-up when invoices are due or overdue, helping Tavily reduce the amount of manual customer outreach required. For a growing customer base, that’s critical because collections work compounds as volume increases.

Revenue Reporting and Validation

Tabs gives Tavily access to reports for unbilled revenue, deferred revenue, and AR breakdowns. These reports help the finance team validate revenue data, support month-end close, and respond to reporting requests without building the analysis from scratch.

Life With Tabs: Time Saved and Faster Access to Revenue Data

With Tabs, Tavily has reduced the manual work required to manage customer creation, invoice setup, accounting processes, and collections. That impact becomes more meaningful as the company grows, since the same automated workflows can support higher customer volume without adding the same amount of manual effort.

“Tabs saved us 10 hours of work. And it’s a scale game. If we have 1,000 customers, it will save much more.”

— Shai Shaick, VP Finance & Operations, Tavily

Tabs has also improved the speed and confidence of Tavily’s reporting. Shai pointed to unbilled revenue, deferred revenue, and AR breakdowns as especially valuable during month-end and due diligence. When Tavily was acquired by Nebius, Tabs made it easier to respond to diligence requests because the finance team could quickly pull revenue materials for specific dates.

• 10 hours saved per month across billing, accounting, and collections workflows
• Faster month-end reporting with access to unbilled revenue and deferred revenue reports
• Easier AR breakdowns for any date during due diligence
• Greater confidence in reporting accuracy after Tavily validated Tabs outputs
• More scalable finance operations as customer volume grows

The biggest shift for Tavily is the ability to stay ahead of growth. As customer volume increases, the finance team can rely on Tabs to automate the repetitive work that would otherwise consume more time each month. For Shai, that makes Tabs a forward-looking investment in the operating foundation Tavily needs as the business scales.

“As a finance leader, you need to be one step ahead before the business is scaling. If you see growth in the number of customers, you definitely need to shift billing into Tabs.”

— Shai Shaick, VP Finance & Operations, Tavily