FinanceRecurring weekly problems

Your accountant shouldn't spend Friday afternoons typing invoices.

The recurring tasks I see most often in this department. Pick the one that hurt most last month.

Supplier invoices keyed into the accounting system by hand

Incoming supplier invoices arrive as PDFs attached to emails or as paper delivered with goods. Someone opens each one, reads the line items, and types the data — supplier, amount, VAT, category — into the accounting system.

Volume: dozens to hundreds of invoices per month
By hand: 1-2 full days per month of finance time; Friday afternoons burned on data entry

Expense receipts collected, photographed, and re-typed

Employees spend money on the company card or out of pocket — travel, meals, supplies, fuel — and submit receipts at month-end by email or as paper. Someone checks each one, enters the amount and category into a spreadsheet or the accounting tool, and reconciles against the card statement.

Volume: 50-200 receipts per month
By hand: 1-2 days per month of finance time; late submissions delay month-end close

Overdue payments chased by phone and email

Customers who haven't paid by the due date are chased one by one — finance pulls a list and calls or emails each customer. Older overdue items sometimes slip below the radar until year-end.

Volume: weekly chasing cycle; dozens of customers per cycle
By hand: half a day per week of finance time; cash collected later than it should be

Month-end reports assembled by hand from multiple tools

At the close of each month someone pulls numbers from the accounting system, bank statements, payroll, and spreadsheets to build the management report — revenue, cash position, margin, overdue receivables. The assembly takes days and the numbers are stale by the time leadership reads them.

Volume: monthly
By hand: 2-4 days per month of finance time; leadership decisions on old data

If any of these sound like your week, a small machine can probably fix it. I've built fixes for problems exactly like these.

ESAEuropean Space Agency. Ariane rockets and satellites. 23 countries, ~3,000 staff.

Air FranceFrance's national airline. ~40,000 staff.

BBVAOne of Europe's 20 largest banks. ~125,000 staff.

KLMThe world's oldest airline, since 1919. ~35,000 staff.

NSDutch national rail. 1.2 million passengers a day. ~20,000 staff.

I built software used by 50,000 people every month with the teams above. The work in this department is simpler than that.

Tell me which one of these hurts most.

30 minutes, free. You describe one recurring task that eats your week. I tell you whether a small machine can take it off your desk, what it would take to build, and what it would cost. Whether you build it with me or not, you leave with a clear answer.

Let's talk