Reduced invoice review from 3 days to 4.2 hours
We built a data extractor for a delivery firm that automatically reads and logs incoming supplier bills.
East Anglian Logistics Ltd struggled with a massive pile-up of paper and PDF bills every Tuesday. We replaced their manual typing with a bot that reads data directly into their ledger. No corporate fluff included.
The challenge
The accounts team of 3 spent 26 hours every week just looking at PDF attachments and typing numbers into spreadsheets. They missed 6 early-payment discounts in August 2024 alone because the to-do pile was too big. Errors were a constant headache. About 8% of invoices had the wrong VAT amount entered by hand, which caused issues during their quarterly audit. They needed a way to clear the backlog without hiring a fourth person for the back office.
Our approach
We spent 3 days at their depot near Ely to see how the staff actually opened emails and filed papers. Our team of 2 mapped out 47 different supplier layouts, ranging from clean digital PDFs to messy scans of hand-written dockets. We didn't try to fix everything at once. We started with the 14 biggest suppliers who sent the most complex files. We stayed focused on simple bots for boring tasks to ensure the team could actually use the tool on day one.
The solution
We built a Python-based data extractor that watches a specific billing inbox. It automatically pulls the vendor name, gross amount, and VAT code from every attachment. The bot then checks these figures against their existing purchase orders in the system. If the numbers match, the data is pushed into a CSV file ready for their Sage accounting software. If something looks odd, like a blurry scan or a price jump, the bot flags it for a human to check. It is tech that actually does its job.
Results
The team now only looks at the 12% of bills where the numbers do not match the original order. Most invoices go from an unread email to the ledger in under 6 minutes without a human touching a key. This cleared their Tuesday backlog by lunch time.
Timeline
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September 12, 2024Audit of 47 supplier invoice formats at the Ely depot.
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October 3, 2024First bot prototype delivered for the top 5 suppliers.
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October 24, 2024Integration with Sage accounting software completed.
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November 14, 2024Full rollout across all transport sub-contractors.
"I was sceptical about a bot reading hand-written dockets, but it actually caught a £480 overcharge we would have missed. We finally have our Tuesdays back."