FAQ
Ask it plainly.
Short answers to the questions we hear first. Search below to pull in articles and platform pages too — if you still can't find it, we'd rather hear it directly.
What is Sonic AI?
An AI-native billing platform for B2B finance teams. It reads what was agreed, runs the live billing schedule or rates each shipment, sends invoices, chases the late ones, matches bank deposits, and posts revenue — on one data model, per organisation.
Is this another invoicing tool with a chatbot?
No. The heart of the product is the billing schedule (for subscriptions) and the rated shipment (for freight). Agents read, draft, and suggest; operators approve. Math on amounts is not a prompt.
Do you process payments or file tax returns?
Sonic does not take the place of a payment processor, a tax engine of record, a general ledger of record, or a CPQ. Stripe and Razorpay can collect on an invoice. Your accountant still owns the books Sonic feeds.
What's the difference between subscription mode and shipment mode?
Subscription orgs bill from contracts and schedules — phases, seats, usage, activation gates. Shipment orgs bill each movement from a carrier contract and a rate card. Shippers and carriers are separate catalogs. The bill-to on collections, bank rec, and revenue is the shipper.
Who is the bill-to on freight?
The shipper. Not the Customer catalog, and not the carrier. Watchtower, bank rec, and the journal use the shipper as the billed party. The mapped column on the file is always who gets the invoice.
How do diesel / rate-index branches work?
Default is the main published series. A branch is a complete table for listed carriers. A carrier belongs to one branch. A missing date on the chosen series does not fall back to the other table. Issued invoices keep the rate they were billed. The full rules live on the shipment platform page.
Will you rewrite an invoice after it has been sent?
No. Sent, paid, void, and final invoices are not rewritten. Corrections are credit notes or a new invoice alongside the original. Drafts and in-progress invoices can still accept lines. Freight has no credit notes — correct the file, or void.
Are seats events or snapshots?
Snapshots. Each row is how many they had that day. Sonic compares it to the balance on record and writes an event only when the count changes. Vendor increase/delta columns are not imported — they break at customer boundaries.
What are confirmation days?
An optional hold on seat adds. If you set N days, an increase on date D bills only if the new count still holds through D+N. Removals bill immediately. Incomplete files show as awaiting, not as a guessed invoice line.
How do usage and seats get in?
Templates map vendor files or a Postgres connection. Usage is events. Seats are daily snapshots compared to the balance on record. Large files are a first-class path, not an afterthought.
Which invoices does Watchtower chase?
Only sent unpaid invoices. Drafts and unsent finals are not overdue. Freight with no payment terms is due on the invoice date, so it still gets a suggestion instead of sitting in a pile.
How do bank rec and collections stay out of each other's way?
Watchtower chases what is still unpaid. Bank rec matches deposits to billed parties. An unmatched deposit is cash that already landed — if you don't match it, the cadence will chase a customer who already wired you. Rec is the off switch collections cannot see on its own.
Is billed the same as recognised?
No. A year billed in January is not a year earned in January. Subscription amounts defer and release over the term. Freight recognises on the haul date, even when the invoice came first. We do not sell this as a certified ASC 606 determination.
Can we start from a signed PDF?
Yes. Upload the agreement, review the structured result, approve. Sonic can materialise the customer and products on approve rather than forcing a blank catalog first. Time-to-schedule is measured in minutes on straightforward contracts.
Where does AI actually sit?
Contract reading, collections suggestions, bank-statement interpretation, and similar judgement steps. Every AI draft is reviewable and grounded to source where we have one. You approve before money moves.
Do you claim SOC 2 or ASC 606?
We do not publish SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, ASC 606, or Ind AS 115 certifications on this site. Security describes how the product is built: organisation isolation, authentication including optional two-factor, audit trails from invoice to journal. Ask us on a demo for the current assurance picture.
How do you compare to Chargebee, Stripe, or NetSuite?
Chargebee is subscription billing. Stripe is a processor — Sonic does not take the payment. NetSuite is the GL of record — Sonic is not. The full map, including Zuora, Maxio, Zenskar, and the spreadsheet, is on Why Sonic AI. The honest test is still a demo on your files.
Do you have case studies?
Not named ones yet. We will not invent a logo wall. The honest path is a walkthrough on the contracts and files you actually bill from — book a demo.
Who is this for?
CFOs, finance leads, and the operators who check invoices every morning. Typical shape: B2B, mixed pricing, foreign contracts, enough volume that a spreadsheet becomes a risk.
Didn't find what you need?
Tell us what you were trying to figure out — a contract shape, a rating rule, a reconciliation edge case — and we will walk through it on a call.