Higher-quality books, faster—With Pilot’s native tools, Lydia finds there’s way less need to go back and forth to solve problems.
More data, like from the app store—Now that they have the Pilot portal, Healium can connect more data sources to better understand their customer.
A partner that moves as fast as VR—VR tech changes constantly. That makes it difficult to hold inventory and price. But Pilot’s model helps them keep up.
Streamlined deferred revenue schedule—Pilot built a model that saves Lydia hours each week and allows them to budget and forecast.
"I really just want to spend my time on marketing and working with customers because that’s not something a computer can do."
Lydia Melton loves almost everything about her job as chief of staff at the virtual reality (VR) wellness startup Healium. The one thing she doesn’t love—and never has—is unnecessary work. “I hate spending my time on things a computer could do automatically,” she says. “It just sucks my soul dry. So I am very excited Pilot has been able to help with those tasks.”
Healium is growing fast, and they look at data coming in from their product, from doctors, from users, and from the various VR app stores. That information is a lot to make sense of. Prior, they relied on a legacy accounting firm where Lydia had to email back and forth. Resolving complex issues could take weeks, which made it difficult to make decisions.
Healium switched to Pilot, first for bookkeeping, then tax, and now CFO Services, and has found consolidating all those teams into one—with context—has freed her to do everything else.
“I really just want to spend my time on marketing and working with customers because that’s not something a computer can do,” says Lydia. Pilot’s approach of 50% software, 50% people has been crucial to that.
Healium provides biofeedback training via a VR app. Medical practitioners like doctors and therapists can hand their patients a VR headset along with a wearable to track the person's heart rate or brainwaves. It then uses this data to reflect their present state back to them and displays calming visuals that invite them to relax.
Running a VR business is complex. There is hardware and software. They previously had a consumer element, but also sold business-to-business. Healium needed a partner that could understand that and keep up.
“The virtual reality industry changes every six months. That means streamlining processes is very difficult. Devices are always changing. The technology is always changing. That makes managing inventory hard, and pricing what you are selling extra hard,” says Lydia. “There is also financial complexity. Different amounts of sales tax you pay in every state, and some states charge for software, and some don’t.”
The virtual reality industry changes every six months. That means streamlining processes is very difficult.
In the past, their books took too long because there was so much back and forth with bank statements. “They were doing things the traditional way. The turnaround time on our books was six weeks because everything was hand-coded, and we just thought, there has to be a better way,” says Lydia. Being a technology company, that just seemed obvious. Surely there was a way to automate and streamline the books. And if it was all software, that might allow them to pull in more data from the app stores. Lydia Googled around and found Pilot.
“The quicker we could get our books, the faster we could make changes and be more profitable and streamline,” says Lydia, “which is why we love that Pilot is so automated. Now it takes us a matter of minutes.”
We love that Pilot is so automated. Now the books take us a matter of minutes.
Pilot gives Heailum a portal where they can connect all their financial institutions and then uses a combination of rules and AI to categorize transactions as income or expenses. A human bookkeeper then reviews and certifies Healium’s books with an eight-hour turnaround, because automation isn’t always right. You need that human expert to trust the results. If needed, Lydia and the bookkeeper can also flexibly edit entries to recategorize transactions or vendors.
Even more exciting, Lydia and the team can now pull in app store data: “The app stores don’t make it easy, but we want to take our individual consumers using our product and map them over so we can tell who our consumer truly is. And to get our deferred revenue schedule in order. But it is very, very complicated, and it doesn’t make sense for a human to do it.” Now, Pilot just handles it.
A human bookkeeper then reviews and certifies Healium’s books with an eight-hour turnaround, versus weeks from their prior firm.
Lydia also prefers Pilot’s software to QuickBooks. “Pilot solves for some QuickBooks limitations, especially when switching between the commercial and consumer sides of our business,” says Lydia. “Say you have a Meta Quest VR headset. If you sell one, you have to code it. There has to be a line item attached in QuickBooks. Well, was it commercial revenue or consumer revenue? In QuickBooks you can’t connect it to both. So having Pilot’s team plus tech is a lifesaver.”
Despite the fact that bookkeeping was now faster, Healium’s deferred revenue schedule still lived in a spreadsheet which they had to complete manually. “There was a lot of back and forth with our prior CFO,” says Lydia—and that seemed wasteful. If the books were moving so fast, why couldn’t more of this schedule be automated? “We leaned into Pilot’s CFO Services and they really, really streamlined the schedule for us.” Now that Healium has all three services through Pilot—bookkeeping, tax prep, and CFO—she no longer has to scroll through long email chains. The Pilot team talks amongst themselves and comes to her with questions that need her attention.
Their Pilot CFO now helps Healium turn that deferred revenue schedule into forecasts and financial models that show Healium’s runway and the impact of pricing changes. “The data is fantastic,” says Lydia. “And the added value is having someone to say, ‘This is the financial impact of that decision you want to make.’ I’d say it’s just been wonderful.”
“Finance is not the area I paid the most attention to in college, but as an entrepreneur you learn very quickly how to use it and how not to use it,” says Lydia. And that also means knowing what she can reliably outsource to experts, so she can focus on all the other aspects of Healium’s business. “If a computer can do it automatically, that’s what I want."
Now Heailum has more data, more insight, and a model that helps them plan and make decisions. “Every step we take to streamline the business helps us make it easier on ourselves,” says Lydia. “And as a startup you have to constantly be thinking that way.”
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Healium offers wellness professionals tools to help their patients understand how they are feeling and self-regulate their emotions.
Lydia Melton loves almost everything about her job as chief of staff at the virtual reality (VR) wellness startup Healium. The one thing she doesn’t love—and never has—is unnecessary work. “I hate spending my time on things a computer could do automatically,” she says. “It just sucks my soul dry. So I am very excited Pilot has been able to help with those tasks.”
Healium is growing fast, and they look at data coming in from their product, from doctors, from users, and from the various VR app stores. That information is a lot to make sense of. Prior, they relied on a legacy accounting firm where Lydia had to email back and forth. Resolving complex issues could take weeks, which made it difficult to make decisions.
Healium switched to Pilot, first for bookkeeping, then tax, and now CFO Services, and has found consolidating all those teams into one—with context—has freed her to do everything else.
“I really just want to spend my time on marketing and working with customers because that’s not something a computer can do,” says Lydia. Pilot’s approach of 50% software, 50% people has been crucial to that.
Healium provides biofeedback training via a VR app. Medical practitioners like doctors and therapists can hand their patients a VR headset along with a wearable to track the person's heart rate or brainwaves. It then uses this data to reflect their present state back to them and displays calming visuals that invite them to relax.
Running a VR business is complex. There is hardware and software. They previously had a consumer element, but also sold business-to-business. Healium needed a partner that could understand that and keep up.
“The virtual reality industry changes every six months. That means streamlining processes is very difficult. Devices are always changing. The technology is always changing. That makes managing inventory hard, and pricing what you are selling extra hard,” says Lydia. “There is also financial complexity. Different amounts of sales tax you pay in every state, and some states charge for software, and some don’t.”
The virtual reality industry changes every six months. That means streamlining processes is very difficult.
In the past, their books took too long because there was so much back and forth with bank statements. “They were doing things the traditional way. The turnaround time on our books was six weeks because everything was hand-coded, and we just thought, there has to be a better way,” says Lydia. Being a technology company, that just seemed obvious. Surely there was a way to automate and streamline the books. And if it was all software, that might allow them to pull in more data from the app stores. Lydia Googled around and found Pilot.
“The quicker we could get our books, the faster we could make changes and be more profitable and streamline,” says Lydia, “which is why we love that Pilot is so automated. Now it takes us a matter of minutes.”
We love that Pilot is so automated. Now the books take us a matter of minutes.
Pilot gives Heailum a portal where they can connect all their financial institutions and then uses a combination of rules and AI to categorize transactions as income or expenses. A human bookkeeper then reviews and certifies Healium’s books with an eight-hour turnaround, because automation isn’t always right. You need that human expert to trust the results. If needed, Lydia and the bookkeeper can also flexibly edit entries to recategorize transactions or vendors.
Even more exciting, Lydia and the team can now pull in app store data: “The app stores don’t make it easy, but we want to take our individual consumers using our product and map them over so we can tell who our consumer truly is. And to get our deferred revenue schedule in order. But it is very, very complicated, and it doesn’t make sense for a human to do it.” Now, Pilot just handles it.
A human bookkeeper then reviews and certifies Healium’s books with an eight-hour turnaround, versus weeks from their prior firm.
Lydia also prefers Pilot’s software to QuickBooks. “Pilot solves for some QuickBooks limitations, especially when switching between the commercial and consumer sides of our business,” says Lydia. “Say you have a Meta Quest VR headset. If you sell one, you have to code it. There has to be a line item attached in QuickBooks. Well, was it commercial revenue or consumer revenue? In QuickBooks you can’t connect it to both. So having Pilot’s team plus tech is a lifesaver.”
Despite the fact that bookkeeping was now faster, Healium’s deferred revenue schedule still lived in a spreadsheet which they had to complete manually. “There was a lot of back and forth with our prior CFO,” says Lydia—and that seemed wasteful. If the books were moving so fast, why couldn’t more of this schedule be automated? “We leaned into Pilot’s CFO Services and they really, really streamlined the schedule for us.” Now that Healium has all three services through Pilot—bookkeeping, tax prep, and CFO—she no longer has to scroll through long email chains. The Pilot team talks amongst themselves and comes to her with questions that need her attention.
Their Pilot CFO now helps Healium turn that deferred revenue schedule into forecasts and financial models that show Healium’s runway and the impact of pricing changes. “The data is fantastic,” says Lydia. “And the added value is having someone to say, ‘This is the financial impact of that decision you want to make.’ I’d say it’s just been wonderful.”
“Finance is not the area I paid the most attention to in college, but as an entrepreneur you learn very quickly how to use it and how not to use it,” says Lydia. And that also means knowing what she can reliably outsource to experts, so she can focus on all the other aspects of Healium’s business. “If a computer can do it automatically, that’s what I want."
Now Heailum has more data, more insight, and a model that helps them plan and make decisions. “Every step we take to streamline the business helps us make it easier on ourselves,” says Lydia. “And as a startup you have to constantly be thinking that way.”
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