Supercharging workflow efficiency

The problem: time-consuming manual bookkeeping, generated by paper-based businesses

Firms that have embraced cloud technology understand that it’s an effortless way to work digitally. However, for paper-based businesses, even cloud-savvy advisors can find themselves chasing paper invoices, bills, and statements, and entering data manually.

Such was the case with Equation Accounting – despite attempts to encourage paper-based clients to work with 100% digital documents, Managing Director Stephanie Pettitt found that some clients continued to send a mix of paper and digital copies, which were laborious to process.

“We found ourselves spending a lot of time chasing, organising paperwork, and manually entering data,” explains Stephanie. “All the retrieving, downloading, sorting, saving, and manual data entry is a time-consuming and laborious activity, which we felt could be streamlined.”

Additionally, there were costs, both direct and indirect, associated with Equation Accounting’s paper-based processes. “The rates per hour to chase, sort, save, and scan documents really added up, but there was also a less obvious, more intangible cost which arose,” says Stephanie. “We found if clients were regularly chased for documents such as invoices, it made the overall experience for them a bit negative, rather than being the upbeat, positive message we wished to express.”

This situation also had time implications. For smaller clients, Stephanie could spend up to an hour each month chasing and processing documents, and several hours per month for larger clients. Over the course of a year, that amounted to hundreds of hours!

The desire to improve this time-consuming and laborious process was further increased by the introduction of Making Tax Digital (MTD) for VAT, the UK government initiative aimed at moving all income taxes to the cloud by 2020. With MTD fast approaching, everyone at Equation Accounting knew it: there had to be a better way!

The solution: a fast and simple method for document collection & data extraction

With new insight into how ‘fetch and extract’ technology could greatly impact her accountancy practice, Stephanie adopted Hubdoc at Equation Accounting as soon as she learned about its functions.

"Hubdoc takes things to the next level in efficiency, phasing out hours of time manually collecting and organising documents. Plus, it has the capability to extract data from invoices and input it digitally, directly into our accounting software, Xero. This saves hours of time and is particularly useful for single-entry invoices."

Currently, Equation Accounting uses Hubdoc to automatically fetch supplier source documents, sort and organise invoices and statements, extract key data, and post transactions directly to Xero.

One of Equation Accounting’s clients, local restaurant and takeaway chain Daniels Fish & Chips, has seen tremendous benefits from adopting Hubdoc. “We used to be a traditional, paper-based business,” notes founder Daniel Pettitt. “With eight locations, we were generating a ton of paperwork, which took a long time to process manually each month. Now, Hubdoc receives much of our data automatically, and we have also set auto-forwards for our emailed invoices. This has saved hours of time, both for myself and for Equation Accounting.”