Pilothouse modernizes global payments and improves financial efficiency with Airwallex

A digital agency built for growth 

Pilothouse is a full-service, results-driven digital marketing agency built to strategically scale brands through an Omni-Channel Marketing System. As a fully integrated marketing partner, Pilothouse empowers leading DTC brands to achieve sustainable growth by balancing short-term performance with long-term brand building. With clients, vendors, and contractors across North America and beyond, Pilothouse manages a high volume of cross-border payments on both the accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) sides, supporting seamless operations at scale.

Founded in 2019 by a team of marketers who saw an opportunity to modernize agency operations, Pilothouse scaled quickly and now supports a growing list of global clients. As the business matured, its finance team began to prioritize more efficient, scalable solutions for managing cash flow across borders.

The challenge: outgrowing wires and workarounds 

Before Airwallex, Pilothouse relied on a patchwork of tools to manage international payments – including traditional banks, fintechs like Convera, and credit cards. Client collections required expensive and tedious wire transfers, especially from the US, while vendor payouts involved manual approvals and limited visibility.

Alex Kantypowicz

Vice President of Finance at Pilothouse

"We have a lot of clients around the world, mainly in the US, and sending wires was expensive and tedious. We wanted to make our AP and AR process better."

For Jen Le, the team’s lead accountant, the lack of real-time access was a daily challenge. "Previously, we weren't able to send a payment outside of Canada at a moment's notice. I'd have to send an email and wait for confirmation."

The solution: a more nimble way to move money across borders

Pilothouse adopted Airwallex to simplify both sides of its global finance function: collecting payments from clients and paying vendors around the world.

With Airwallex's local receiving accounts, US clients now pay via ACH instead of wire – saving time and money on both ends. "It's much more nimble," said Jen. "Now I can just log on and send or receive payments at any time of day."

On the payables side, Airwallex replaced multiple disconnected systems with a single, unified platform.

Alex Kantypowicz

Vice President of Finance at Pilothouse

“We didn’t have a single platform before. Now with Airwallex, we save money when sending and receiving payments.”

The team now uses Airwallex to pay vendors across Canada, the US, and other regions from a single location. Integrated with Xero, the workflow is fast, traceable, and easy to reconcile.

The results: from manual to manageable

Pilothouse has reduced its banking fees by nearly 65% year-over-year since adopting Airwallex, thanks to lower foreign exchange costs and fewer platform charges.

Airwallex has also improved day-to-day financial oversight. Incoming payments trigger instant email notifications, helping the AR team stay on top of receivables. Account balances and transactions are easily tracked from the dashboard, providing finance with better visibility into cash flow.

"User permissions and approvals were also easy to set up," Alex added. "Compared to traditional banks, it's just a lot simpler."

"Airwallex has really reduced our costs, increased our efficiency, and improved how we manage international payments," said Jen.

Where performance marketing meets performance finance

With a growing vendor network spanning more than five countries, Pilothouse is continuing to scale. To support this growth, the finance team is exploring new ways to centralize financial operations, including expanding its use of Airwallex for AP/AR visibility and reporting.

"We love Airwallex so far," said Jen. "It’s really helped us move faster, save money, and simplify how we work across borders."