How Kolleno Helped EPI Reduce 90+ Days Balance Overdue by 79%

EPI Fire Protection and Security has spent more than 30 years delivering fire and security services across the Greater Toronto Area, working with buildings that can’t afford to compromise on safety.

That same precision hadn’t carried over to the finance side of the business, where accounts receivable ran manually, scattered across systems that didn’t talk to each other.

EPI’s collections process ran entirely by hand: checking QuickBooks, composing individual emails, logging reminders in calendars, and hoping nothing slipped through. None of the systems it relied on, QuickBooks for accounting, inboxes for reminders, spreadsheets for tracking, were connected, so context got lost moving between them and follow-ups were delayed or duplicated. “We were spending more time chasing payments than we were on actual financial strategy,” says Jonathan Zafrani, General Manager.

Because follow-ups depended on memory, they didn’t go out consistently: some clients got chased immediately, others weeks later, with no standard workflow or record of what had already been said. In a business built on trust, that inconsistency carried real reputational risk. Answering a simple question, like which accounts were actually at risk, meant pulling reports and scanning spreadsheets by hand, since there was no dashboard showing overdue invoices or aging at a glance.

EPI needed automation, real-time visibility, and one consistent way to manage client communication, not another add-on. Once QuickBooks was connected, invoices created there began syncing into Kolleno automatically, complete with customer details, due dates, and payment status, and once an invoice was paid through Kolleno, that flowed straight back into QuickBooks. “It’s made everything tighter. Kolleno and QuickBooks work together seamlessly. It feels like one system, not two,” Zafrani says.

Reminders now go out automatically at set intervals based on invoice aging, with escalation built in for persistent non-payment and high-risk accounts flagged for the team to step into personally. “We’re no longer babysitting overdue invoices. Kolleno does the chasing, and we only step in when we need to,” Zafrani says. Clients get a personalized link to their own branded portal too, where they can check what they owe and pay instantly by bank transfer or card instead of hunting for invoice copies or bank details. “Clients tell us how much easier it is to pay now. It’s professional and fast, reflecting the kind of service we want to provide,” Zafrani says.

Every overdue balance, promise to pay, and aging trend now lives on one dashboard instead of exported reports and old spreadsheets, with each person seeing a view suited to their role and managers getting the full picture across accounts.

In three months, 90+ day overdue balances fell 79%, the number of overdue invoices dropped 37%, and median days late came down 67%.

With Kolleno handling the repetitive work, the team spends its time on cash flow and client relationships instead of chasing invoices, and with QuickBooks and Kolleno now in sync, teams that used to work off different numbers finally work off the same ones.