ECI Software Acquires Drypowder to Reduce Manual AR Workflows

ECI Software Solutions announced the acquisition of Drypowder, a financial technology company that has built purpose-built accounts receivable, billing and digital payments infrastructure specifically for building materials and construction. The deal extends ECI’s strategy to unify ERP data, digital payments and AI-driven financial workflows into a single operational experience across its 25,000 customers in more than 90 countries.

The acquisition speaks directly to a structural problem in the industries ECI serves. In construction, field service, manufacturing and distribution, AR workflows routinely run on spreadsheets, disconnected billing tools and email threads that have no live connection to the ERP systems where job costing, project status and customer credit data actually live. That disconnect lengthens Days Sales Outstanding, erodes working capital and creates reconciliation backlogs that finance teams absorb manually at month end. One construction company using automated progress billing reduced average DSO from 52 to 34 days and materially improved working capital position after aligning invoicing cycles to actual job completion data rather than manual estimates.

Two Products, One Closed-Loop AR Architecture

Drypowder brings two integrated products into the ECI portfolio. Vault is a digital customer payment platform that allows buyers to select invoices, pay in minutes and receive real-time payment confirmation with seamless ERP posting, replacing the multi-day settlement lag that characterizes manual invoice-to-payment workflows. Homebase is an AR operations hub that centralizes collections, disputes and customer communications in a single workspace, applying AI-driven automation to prioritize which accounts need immediate attention and which can be managed through automated follow-up sequences.

For finance and operations leaders whose teams spend significant time on collections calls, dispute resolution and payment chasing, the operational shift is direct: Homebase surfaces AI-prioritized worklists based on ERP customer data and payment history rather than requiring AR staff to manually segment aging reports. Businesses that have deployed comparable AI-powered AR automation have reduced invoice processing costs by 35% and improved collection efficiency by 45%, according to market data. In AI-driven construction accounting workflows demonstrated at IBS 2026, companies reported 50% to 80% time reductions in manual data entry workflows tied to job costing and cost document processing.

Evaluation and Integration Priorities for ERP Leaders

The AR automation market was valued is projected to more than double to $12 billion by 2033, with adoption accelerating fastest among small and mid-sized businesses seeking to close the gap between enterprise-grade financial controls and their existing ERP capabilities.

For technology leaders evaluating AI-powered AR platforms in the context of an existing ERP environment, four criteria should drive the assessment: the depth of native ERP data integration to ensure payment and collection events post in real time without manual reconciliation; AI prioritization logic that draws on ERP customer history rather than generic aging buckets; compliance and audit trail capabilities embedded within the AR workflow rather than added as an afterthought; and the platform’s ability to handle industry-specific billing structures including project-based milestones, credit accounts and service contracts.

The most common adoption challenge in deploying embedded AR automation is data hygiene: AI prioritization and cash flow prediction models are only as reliable as the customer master data, credit limits and invoice history held in the ERP. Organizations that have standardized customer records and payment terms as a prerequisite to AR automation deployment consistently reach measurable DSO reduction faster than those attempting to automate workflows while simultaneously cleaning data.