Table of Contents
Embedded payments are starting to change the role ERPs play in a business. In this episode, Michael Praeger is joined by Michael Dunn, CEO of Centerbase, to talk through what that looks like inside mid-size law firms. As accounts payable (AP) payments move directly into day-to-day workflows, ERPs are evolving from systems that record transactions to systems that actively execute them. This gives firms better visibility into how money is tracked, managed, and tied back to client work and profitability.
Dunn shares where firms tend to lose visibility, how that impacts profitability, and why getting payments right has become more important as firms scale. He also gets into how he approaches partnerships at Centerbase—why they prioritize fewer, deeper relationships, and how tools like AI are starting to shape product decisions and pricing.
With more than 20 years in SaaS and technology leadership, including roles at Match.com, Stack Sports, and Dex Media, and a prior partnership with AvidXchange as CEO of ResMan, Dunn brings a practical perspective on how these systems evolve over time.
About This Podcast
“The Power of Change” is an AvidXchange podcast hosted by Michael Praeger, Co-Founder and CEO of AvidXchange. On this show business leaders discuss leadership topics, industry trends, and embracing change.
Helpful links
Key Insights from Michael Dunn
1. Embedded payments are turning ERPs into systems of action
Michael Dunn argues that modern ERPs are evolving from systems that simply record transactions into systems that actively execute them through embedded payment workflows.
2. Law firms need better matter-level profitability visibility
Many firms can see overall profitability but struggle to understand which client matters generate the strongest returns. Embedded payment workflows help connect expenses directly to matters and clients.
3. Strategic partnerships create more value than dozens of integrations
Centerbase prioritizes fewer, deeper partnerships that are tightly connected to customer workflows instead of maintaining large numbers of surface-level integrations.
4. Building payment rails is rarely a competitive advantage
According to Dunn, ERP providers gain more value by focusing on workflow, compliance, and customer experience while partnering with specialists that already manage money movement at scale.
Topics Discussed in This Episode
- Embedded payments
- ERP software
- Legal practice management software
- Law firm accounting
- Matter profitability
- Payment automation
- SaaS partnerships
- Build vs. buy technology decisions
- AI pricing models
- Legal technology trends
- Financial operations
- Mid-market software
Podcast Transcript
Please note: The “Power of Change” podcast is designed for audio consumption. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
00:02
Michael Praeger
Welcome to The Power of Change, the podcast that delves into the intersection of leadership and technology in the finance world. I’m your host, Michael Praeger, the CEO and co-founder of AvidXchange. In each episode I dive into the leadership topics and industry trends with business leaders, partners, and customers who embrace the power of change.
Today I’m here with Michael Dunn, the CEO of Centerbase. Centerbase is a leading practice management software platform purpose-built for mid-sized law firms, which brings over 20 years of experience in technology and software leadership. Most recently, Michael served as the CEO of ResMan, a property management SaaS platform where he drove revenue growth, hit historical high customer NPS scores and established the company as a middle market leader. In addition, ResMan has been a longtime partner of AvidXchange.
Prior to ResMan, he held CTO roles at some recognizable names including Match.com, Stack Sports and Dex Media. He serves on the Centerbase board of directors and has held board seats across multiple software companies. So welcome to the show, Michael.
How will embedded payments change law firm financial operations over the next five years?
Michael Praeger
So to jump into it, we’ll start Mike on kind of the thought leadership side and you know, Centerbase serves law firms, you know, focused on middle market and mid-sized law firms and your users are making payments. If you put your kind of feature looking hat on, if you look out maybe three to five years for kind of your industry, what do you see the role of embedded payments impacting the financial operations of your customers?
01:32
Michael Dunn
Yeah, I mean I would say in general embedded payments are already reshaping ERP in financial operations just in that it’s providing automation from invoice receipt through approvals, payment automation. It’s really changing the narrative of an ERP from recording transactions to actually executing transactions. And we like to think of that as like moving from a system of record to a system of action. And so we really think kind of the role of the ERP is changing from that, you know, we’re just recording it to now we’re helping execute it in that for a law firm it means that the ERP now controls every dollar leaving the law firm. And that’s hugely important for visibility, control, for audit. And when you look at the administrative time spent, an ERP that provides embedded payment automation really now can automate that entire payment cycle.
So it manages working capital at the law firm, it automates reconciliation, provides insights into the spend. And then again this is where I think embedded payments really gonna push ERPs from being the system of record and the system of actions, especially with their finance teams.
02:42
Michael Praeger
I love that, system of actions, and I think that leads right into a little bit of the AI story and the impact of how you can bring AI solutions to your customers. Right?
02:54
Michael Dunn
Absolutely.
Why are law firms prioritizing payment automation?
02:55
Michael Praeger
With that maybe is a little question related to what is it that you’re seeing from your customers or the industry that made this strategic for you now?
03:04
Michael Dunn
Yeah, it’s a great question. I think law firms are really looking now for one payment workflow. And, and so workflow is a really big thing. As you know in most vertical industries. ERP is bringing in workflow and automation into those tasks. And that’s how these businesses start to scale, especially in the mid-market because they’ve come out of being smaller, they’re scaling. And that one payment workflow that consolidates receipt approval, payment reconciliation and especially tying expenses to client matters. That’s where it becomes very important for law firms. Just paying the bills is one thing, but if you can’t tie those back and understand, for instance, was that expense billable or non-billable? Because if it was billable, you got to make sure you’re billing for it or you’re losing revenue and you’re losing profitability.
What risks do law firms face without integrated payment workflows?
03:55
Michael Dunn
It’s not just normal expenses, but you know, this is disbursements, it’s return of trust funds. You’ve got settlement funds at the end of a case, you’ve got paying filing fees, but that are very important and then multi-party payments. So there’s a lot of complexity that starts to come out here that these firms are doing manually and trying to reconcile and record. And when you can automate that into one workflow, that’s huge. And I would say probably the largest risk that firms see if they don’t do this right is if they make an improper disbursement or they overdraw from a trust account. That’s a big risk. So they want to make sure they’ve got visibility into those accounts and where those payments are coming from.
How do embedded payments improve matter-level profitability?
04:37
Michael Dunn
And then again, I think just having it in the ERP is a natural place because now you can tie it to the client in the matter and understand if it’s billable or not billable, which gives firms something that they’ve been missing, which is matter level profitability reporting. And you can say look at the firm we’re profitable, but which matters were profitable. And now this gives you that ability to tie those expenses to the revenue.
05:01
Michael Praeger
Yeah, like every area, like you know, every business has customers that are, you know, more profitable than others, right? And the more you can understand that, the more then you can, you know, cater your, you know, whether it be your support or your delivery, whatever it is to, you know, the different levels of, you know, customer, you know, profiles that you have.
Let’s switch a little bit to maybe kind of the partnership story. And so you’re a veteran of, you know, of partnering, whether it be back previously at ResMan, earlier in your career at Match.com or Stack Sports or Dex Media, and now it’s at Centerbase. And I’d love to get your perspective of, you know, obviously like AvidXchange, you know, having the right partners is not only kind of critical to executing the business, but also strategic.
What makes a strong ERP technology partnership?
05:49
Michael Praeger
And when you think of, you know, kind of that partnership valuation or the right ingredients that make the right partners for Centerbase, what does that look like? What are the kind of the table stakes that are just, you know, kind of requirements and then, what are you looking for in terms of, you know, these long-term partnership relationship?
06:07
Michael Dunn
What I look for is number one, relevancy to my end user and the attachment to our core platform. So that’s a fancy way of saying, is this something that my clients are going to use repeatedly and there’s relevancy for it to be tied into the core platform, which is Centerbase, which is the ERP. The second thing I look for is relationship and commitment, right? So, you know, are we aligned on what success looks like for both partners? And then are we aligned, and have we outlined the commitment to making that in terms of either mutual customer support, go to market, in terms of how we go to market together, having a philosophy on embedded integration which I believe is the best user experience versus just a backend integration.
And then certainly you have to think about operational and technical relationships. They’re part of the success too. So, for instance, you know, how are teams constantly enriching the integration to drive continual value and expand the capabilities that exist in both platforms and bringing it to life and the integration as the products evolve and then how do you work together on implementations and support for customers? So, it’s more than just kind of what’s on a piece of paper. It’s like, you know, what is the quality of that relationship and the depth of it?
Why does Centerbase prefer fewer, deeper partnerships?
07:21
Michael Praeger
I think, you know, that’s really well said. And I think, you know, one of the things that is interesting, there’s a lot of people out there in the industry who are focused on creating lots of partnerships, getting lots of press releases about, you know, different partnerships. And I’ve all, you know, preached to my team, it’s not about the press release of a new partnership. It’s like, how are we engaging to make the partner successful? Right. And all the work happens after the press release, right? It happens in terms of that engagement model and actually, you know, driving the right customer experience. Because at the end of the day, the way I look at it, you know, for AvidXchange to be a great partner, you know, for you now at Centerbase, it’s how do we become a competitive advantage for you? How do we create that great user experience? And then when you’re in a competitive scenario, how can we help you create that competitive differential?
08:12
Michael Dunn
And we see that in spades. I mean, I’ve seen it when we partnered at ResMan together with Avid and I expect nothing but great success here as we launch our partnership here. But I can’t say it any better than you did. But having fewer, deeper strategic partnerships I believe is more important than having hundreds of surface level integrations that only two or three customers are using. I think when you can find something that really appeals across your industry and your user base, you’ve really got a strategic partnership that’s bringing value to the industry.
Should ERP companies build their own payment infrastructure?
08:45
Michael Praeger
Yeah, I couldn’t say it better. And I think, you know what, you know, it makes it fun and, you know, working, you know, with our core teams together is when you have that shared alignment, there’s a cultural fit between our organizations and then it becomes a lot of fun working with customers. But as it relates to payments, how do you think about, you know, ERPs that try to build their own payment rails, payment execution versus partnering when it is such a different business?
09:11
Michael Dunn
Yeah, it’s a great question. It’s obviously one that as a ERP platform that’s in vertical SaaS with a high propensity to be able to attach payments. You ask yourself this question strategically a lot. And I would say when you look at the complexity of money movement, it isn’t something we want to try and replicate when a company like Avid’s really invested and has scale doing this across so many industries. Now, that being said, what Centerbase can do is bring the intricacies of how legal firms have to make and track payments so that the firm’s perspective on compliance, audit trails, how payments are managed within the ERP. We want our ERP to be that system of action to initiate payments and provide the core data to tie those payments back to the proper accounts.
We are superior at that in making sure that is elegant from a front end perspective, but trying to replicate all the money movement across the network and the back end. When you’ve got somebody who’s capably done it across industries and is very well adopted and has case studies across industries. That’s where you get such a more of a, like you said earlier, competitive advantage by partnering here. And then we believe we are the benefactor of it because we get so much data through our integration. We’re going to get that detailed transaction data, even invoice receipt capabilities. This is going to allow Centerbase to be really that source of intelligence for law firms around their financial performance and decision making.
So that to me is like we can move a lot faster when we’re not trying to replicate something like the complexity of money movement and we want to be that front end around the execution of the data.
How does Michael Dunn start his day?
11:00
Michael Praeger
No, that’s really well said, Michael. Let’s go to what I call kind of the lightning round. And this is to allow, you know, our viewers and our listeners to learn a little bit more about the personal side of yourself. So, first of all I have to ask you, what time does your alarm clock go off in the morning?
11:17
Michael Dunn
It goes off at 6:30. That’s when it’s set. Most, most days that’s the day I wake up is 6:30. I try to do that across any time zone. Obviously on the weekends it might, the snooze button may happen a little bit, but you know, on a consistent basis 6:30.
What leadership habits does Michael Dunn prioritize?
11:34
Michael Praeger
What rhythms do you try to protect? No matter what, no matter how busy you are, whether it be, you know, daily, weekly, monthly routines, what are those rhythms you try to protect?
11:43
Michael Dunn
The main things most important to me is always spending time daily with every member of my leadership team, my executive leadership team. We’re a very tight group and I think when we move together and we’re on the same page together, we accomplish more. My senior leadership team, which is one layer down, we meet with them. I meet with them every two weeks.
But probably most importantly, and I hate to say most importantly, but we do a full company stand up every week. And that is, it doesn’t matter where I’m at. I take the time out. I say I have to get out of this meeting, I have to go do this so that I can be in our company stand up. And I just think it’s important to be visible, to be able to reinforce priorities and obviously to celebrate our, and maintain our momentum in the business.
How does Michael Dunn stay organized and prioritize his day?
12:27
Michael Praeger
Okay, going back to, you know, 6:30, you’re getting out of bed. What’s the first app that you look at in the morning?
12:35
Michael Dunn
Sadly, this may be the most boring. I don’t know if it’d be the most boring answer. But it’s Outlook, email and calendar. I wish it were more exciting than that, but that’s literally probably on most days the first thing I open is it’s the calendar and my email along with that.
How is Michael Dunn using AI in his professional and personal life?
12:51
Michael Praeger
What’s your most recent personal use of AI? What did you ask AI to do and which platform did you use?
12:57
Michael Dunn
So I use it a lot here at Centerbase and then, and I’ve used it personally as well on, you know, personal things. I would say probably. So Claude is probably what I use the most here at Centerbase. One of the things we’ve been doing, and I personally been doing this week is we’re launching a new product here pretty soon and it’s an AI-based product. The concept of looking at analysis between the implication of usage-based pricing for AI products versus the traditional seat-based product or some combination thereof. It’s interesting. You know, Claude didn’t just give me like the economic and financial impacts of this model versus that model, but it actually was really good at the psychological impact from the buyer’s perspective. Like, it really went into a lot of depth, even though I didn’t ask him to, of, what is your buyer going to perceive if you do it this way versus this way? So I just, it’s. I’m always amazed about how AI changes how we build things, but also in how we process information and make decisions.
And I would say on a personal note, my wife and I have started to travel more. We’re empty nesters or free birds, whatever you call it. Our kids are in college and she and I have now used ChatGPT to literally just plan trips.
14:16
Michael Praeger
Oh, it’s amazing.
14:17
Michael Dunn
You pick a destination and you say, I’m gonna be there for four days, three days, five days, whatever it is. And you say, give me an itinerary.
14:24
Michael Praeger
Yeah, it’s like, absolutely me. I know I’m getting ready, I’m leaving. I’m gonna be in Italy first week in May and same thing. And also the curating, it’s like, give me the, you know where I should go to dinner by boat on Lake Como. And it’s amazing from that perspective, right?
14:39
Michael Dunn
Yeah. Tells you which train to take. It’s like, I mean, it’s very thorough and it’s a game changer.
What advice would Michael Dunn give his 25-year-old self?
14:45
Michael Praeger
All right, so my last lightning round question is Michael Dunn at age 25, in seeing the success as a leader that you’ve achieved, what would that Michael Dunn at age 25 say that’s been most surprising of what he’s seen?
15:00
Michael Dunn
I’d say probably one of the biggest lessons I wish I knew back then. First of all, I would say patience is always like. I think when you’re younger, there’s always a sense of impatience. I’m still a big believer that you don’t want to be too patient. I think it’s good to be impatient sometimes, but you learn when and how to be patient. I think at 25, I was probably not mature enough to ever learn how to be patient. And now I’ve learned how to be patient and impatient, which is good. And I would say on a personal note, you know, I think back, like, when I was 25, one of the things that, you know, I wish I always knew how fast time flies by because it’s really hard to appreciate it until it flies by.
15:43
Michael Praeger
Yeah. And now our kids are in college, right? Yeah.
15:46
Michael Dunn
I mean, I’ve been married for 27 years. I’ve got two kids in college. And, you know, there’s not a day that goes by recently where I wonder, where did all the time go? And I think that applies in personal life for sure, but it applies in business life too.
I mean, I’ve been here a year at Centerbase, and it seems like I just started a couple of months ago. Like, it goes by really quick. And so time’s a resource you just can’t buy and you never can buy it back. So I think you gotta be intentional with where you spend your time every day and every week. And I think you probably take that for granted when you’re 25, you feel like you got all the time in the world. So, yeah, that’d probably be it.
Closing
16:24
Michael Praeger
Awesome. Well, well said. And no, it’s been great not only hearing more about your thought leadership, the partnership story, and then kind of the lightning round of getting more personable into getting to know you. I’ve been doing this a long time and, you know, it’s been 25 years since I started AvidXchange, and I can’t think of a more exciting time to do what I’m doing than right now. You know, it’s hard to say, but I think, you know, the most change-driven, exciting times in my career are going to be, you know, the next five years.
You’re a real pro and a thought leader across the industry, and so we’ll all do our part. But I think it’s leaders like yourself that are, you know, be in the forefront of evangelizing what’s possible with customers that make the difference. So thank you for doing what you do, and thanks for being on today’s edition of this podcast and joining me today.
17:11
Michael Dunn
Great. I appreciate those comments. It was my pleasure. Excited about the partnership and what we can do together in the legal industry.
17:18
Michael Praeger
Thanks for listening to The Power of Change presented by AvidXchange. If you like what you’ve heard, subscribe to our channel and leave a five star review. While you’re waiting for the next episode, head over to avdexchange.com for our latest research reports and business insights. And if you’re interested in learning more about accounts payable automation from AvidXchange, click the link in our show notes to connect with our experts. Thanks again for listening to The Power of Change. We’ll see you next time.
FAQ
What are embedded payments in an ERP?
According to Michael Dunn, embedded payments help move ERP systems from simply recording transactions to actively executing them. In the episode, he explains how embedded payment workflows can bring invoice approvals, payment execution, reconciliation, and financial visibility into a single system rather than relying on disconnected processes.
Why are embedded payments important for law firms?
Dunn explains that law firms need more than payment processing—they need visibility into how payments connect to client matters, trust accounts, filing fees, settlement distributions, and billable expenses. He argues that bringing payments into the ERP helps firms reduce risk, improve visibility, and better understand profitability.
Why do law firms need a single payment workflow?
According to Dunn, law firms often manage a mix of billable expenses, trust account transactions, filing fees, settlement funds, and other payments that can be difficult to track across disconnected systems. He argues that a single workflow improves visibility, reduces manual work, and helps firms better connect expenses to client matters.
What is matter-level profitability?
In the conversation, Dunn describes matter-level profitability as a way for law firms to understand which client matters are generating the strongest returns. By connecting expenses directly to matters and clients, firms can see not only whether the business is profitable overall, but which specific engagements are driving that profitability.
Should ERP vendors build their own payment infrastructure?
Dunn argues that most ERP providers create more value by focusing on workflow, compliance, auditability, and customer experience rather than replicating the complexity of money movement. He explains that partnering with a payments specialist allows ERP companies to focus on the workflows they know best while still delivering integrated payment experiences.
What makes a successful technology partnership?
According to Dunn, successful partnerships start with relevance to the customer and alignment between both organizations. During the episode, he highlights shared goals, deep integration, ongoing product investment, operational collaboration, and mutual commitment to customer success as key ingredients for a strong partnership.
What does Michael Dunn mean by a "system of action"?
Dunn says ERP platforms are evolving from systems of record—which primarily capture and store transactions—to systems of action that help execute financial processes. In his view, embedded payments play a major role in that shift by allowing ERPs to automate approvals, payments, reconciliation, and financial workflows directly within the platform.