AP finally has the stage, and an AP peer community is how leaders keep it. In the latest episode of Extropy On AIr, Ravit Gutman, Founder and CEO of Extropy Advisors, talks with Kaitlynn Williams, Lead Accountant at Dexcom and Basware ILM Architect Award winner, about life after go-live, turning event ideas into a roadmap, and learning from peers.
Listen: Hear the full conversation on Extropy On AIr or on Spotify.
Key takeaways
- AP sees nearly all of a company’s spend, so starting transformation with AP shows exactly where data breaks and what needs to change across teams.
- Go-live is not the finish line. Dexcom’s results came from the process changes and team adoption that followed implementation.
- Event ideas stick when they are tied to the budgeted plan, the roadmap, and company goals, with data behind them.
- The biggest time savings often hide in small, unwritten manual steps, not in the obvious bottlenecks.
- A strong AP peer community needs trust, a healthy mix of people, and consistency, so context builds month after month.
Why should finance transformation start with AP?
Because AP sees almost all of a company’s spend, starting there shows exactly where data is wrong and where processes stall. Fix those spots and the benefit usually reaches more than two teams.
Ravit noted that AP is finally getting the stage it deserves. In today’s economy, knowing where the money goes matters more than ever. Kaitlynn added that companies often start improvements higher up and hope the benefits trickle down to AP, which tends to leave AP stuck in a silo.
The role itself has changed too. When Dexcom went live on Basware, Kaitlynn was the accounts payable supervisor. Today she owns Dexcom’s P2P systems globally, and her former team has moved from data entry into analytics, automation, and learning how to build and control AI. Read more about how Dexcom transformed AP efficiency with Basware.
What happens after an AP automation go-live?
The real work starts. Go-live gives you the system’s capabilities, and results come from process changes, team adoption, and steadily removing manual touches.
That work is what the Basware Invoice Lifecycle Management (ILM) Architect Award recognized. Ravit served as Dexcom’s architect on the original implementation, so presenting the award to Kaitlynn in Dublin closed a full circle. Kaitlynn shared the credit with Kathy, Dexcom’s AP manager, and the team behind this year’s results. It follows Dexcom’s 2026 North American Finance Transformation Award.
Her next target is the small stuff: the drop-down someone clicks every single time, or the rule that lives in someone’s head and has never been written down. Remove enough of those two-second tasks and the team gets time back for harder problems, like understanding why an approver keeps stalling. As Kaitlynn put it, no system will fix that on its own.
How do you turn conference ideas into real change?
Tie each idea to what the business already cares about: the budgeted plan, the roadmap, and company goals, with data to back it up.
Events are energizing, but momentum fades once everyone is back in their inbox. The people in the room at an event are rarely the people who sign off, so Kaitlynn organizes her ideas into a roadmap leadership can say yes to. Early on she pushed hard for auto transfers, and leadership saw it as low-hanging fruit to do later. The lesson: align on direction first, because ideas that never get traction chip away at your confidence.
Confidence was the theme of Kaitlynn’s Dublin panel with Mike Jasper, VP of Finance Transformation at Extropy Advisors. Her view is that confidence comes from trust, and hearing peers say “that’s a good idea” is what builds it. For more from the event, read what we heard at Basware’s customer event in Dublin.
Why does an AP peer community matter?
A peer community keeps ideas moving between events and shows you what’s possible before you build it yourself.
Kaitlynn is a founding member of Transforming Out Loud, Extropy Advisors’ invite-only monthly community for AP and finance transformation leaders. Hearing how peers solved a problem lets her skip the hassles they already went through, and as Ravit added, simply learning that everyone shares the same problem is validating. For Kaitlynn, a good peer group comes down to trust, a mix of people who are similar but not identical, and above all consistency.
Her advice: stay connected with the people you meet at events, build your own think tanks, and learn from people who don’t use your system or your ERP. And it’s okay to show up and just listen.
In their words
“Everyone thinks once the project goes live, it’s done, all my wildest dreams are going to come true. And that’s not really it.”
Kaitlynn Williams, Dexcom
“You don’t have to bring something to the table every single session. That’s fine.”
Kaitlynn Williams, Dexcom
About the guest
Kaitlynn Williams is Lead Accountant at Dexcom, where she manages the company’s global P2P systems. She was Dexcom’s accounts payable supervisor when it went live on Basware, received the Basware ILM Architect Award in Dublin, and is a founding member of Transforming Out Loud.
FAQ
What is Transforming Out Loud?
An invite-only monthly peer community from Extropy Advisors for AP and finance transformation leaders, whatever system they use. Members bring real problems and work through them together.
Is AP transformation finished at go-live?
No. Go-live delivers the system’s capabilities. Results come from process changes, team adoption, and removing the manual steps people still take.
How can AP leaders keep momentum after a conference?
Tie ideas to company goals and the roadmap, back them with data, and stay connected with the peers you met, through a community or a think tank of your own.
Next step
Listen to the full episode of Extropy On AIr on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and share it with someone on your team.
Book a Discovery Call to talk through what comes after go-live for your AP team, and how to turn your next round of ideas into a roadmap that sticks.
