Ad Sales Without the Billing Overhead
How Ad Astra Media replaced a memory-dependent billing operation with a system that runs itself, across dozens of simultaneous campaigns.
THE PROBLEM
Ad Astra Media is a newsletter advertising agency that sells and coordinates campaigns between advertisers and the publishers who run their ads. Campaigns can have dozens of individual placements across multiple publications, each with its own scheduling, pricing, and run dates. Larger campaigns can have upwards of 50 placements, and with that kind of volume, Ad Astra's admin work for contracts and invoice reconciliation alone was stacking up fast.
Their manual process was functional, but it couldn't keep pace with the volume. Availability had to be sourced by hand, contracts were built in documents and uploaded to a separate e-signature platform, and the billing operation ran on the team's memory. Three billing schedules, dozens of simultaneous campaigns, every change requiring manual reconciliation.
Everything depended on the team's memory.
THE SOLUTION
We built an end-to-end campaign billing system where a custom CRM is the single source of truth for every downstream step, from contract generation to invoice delivery. Once a campaign is packaged and publisher dates are confirmed, contracts are generated and sent for signature automatically, with no manual document assembly. When the contract is signed, the campaign kicks off. From that point, the billing engine activates and invoices are drafted automatically based on the payment terms captured in the contract, whether that's a one-time charge, a monthly schedule, or billing tied to individual deliverables. Any campaign change updates the invoice automatically. The team gets notified when a draft is ready to review, approves it, and it goes out.
WHAT HAPPENS AUTOMATICALLY
Once the campaign is built and dates are confirmed, the system takes over:
Contract generated from campaign data and sent for signature
Deal status updated when the contract is sent and signed
Executed agreement stored in the CRM
Campaign kickoff communications sent upon signature
Invoicing schedule calculated based on contract payment terms
Invoices drafted on schedule across one-time, monthly, and per-deliverable billing
Customer created in the accounting system if one doesn't exist
Invoice created and sent when approved
THE RESULT
A multi-tool, fully manual operation replaced by a single operational hub
Every billing schedule handled automatically, including the edge cases, with no manual tracking or memory required
Team notified when drafts are ready to review, not expected to remember when to act
Campaign changes reflected in the invoice automatically, with no reconciliation required
Fully automated contract assembly and signature pipeline, with no document building or platform switching
SYSTEM FLEXIBILITY
This architecture was built on Airtable as the operational hub, with Documint for document generation, Fillout for e-signature, and QuickBooks for invoicing, all accessible and triggered directly from Airtable. The same system design works across comparable tool stacks depending on what your team already uses. If a proper operational hub doesn't exist yet, that's typically where we start.
Looking to build something similar?
Related Work
Client Lifecycle Architecture
Lead-to-Kickoff Automation
A fully structured client intake system that moves an event planning inquiry from first contact to signed agreement and paid deposit, with just two manual touchpoints.
Reduced administrative time on client intake over 80%.
