Automating financial reporting for the CEO

Stacks of invoices and an Excel that couldn't keep up

In April 2023, we entered a furniture manufacturing plant in Nowy Targ. The owner, Mr. Andrzej, lost every second Saturday of the month manually re-entering data from binders into a table on his computer. He had an average of 1,247 cost invoices per month and zero certainty about how much money would actually be left in the account after paying 28 employees. The problem was not a lack of staff competence, but an old system that forced waiting for document booking until the 20th day of the next month.

The lack of current information about the margin on specific products caused the company to produce 14 types of chairs, 3 of which were completely deficit-making. Mr. Andrzej didn't know this because the collective report he received with a long delay effectively blurred these differences. Our analysis showed that manual entry errors occurred in 8.4% of cases. This generated total chaos in settlements with wood and lacquer suppliers, and the CEO had to personally correct every mistake over 500 PLN.

Tatry Strategy Group stepped in to stop this time leak. We verify facts in 48 hours, so we quickly determined that most time was wasted on the office-CEO line. Information about fuel costs or small workshop purchases reached the system with a week's delay. This made financial forecasts worth as much as last year's snow. We focused on specifics instead of theory and started by cleaning up processes that added no value to the business.

Numbers don't lie. If the CEO sees the financial result with a month's delay, they are essentially driving a car with a covered windshield.

Scripts instead of hands and 47 seconds per document

We focused on eliminating manual work. Instead of buying expensive systems for hundreds of thousands of zlotys, we used a simple script connecting email with a database. From May 2023, every PDF invoice hitting the office inbox is automatically scanned by an OCR algorithm. Data reaches the sheet within 47 seconds of receiving the message. This shortened document flow time from 4 business days to less than a minute, eliminating the need for manual transcription of tax IDs and VAT amounts.

The accountant, Ms. Maria, stopped playing the role of a typewriter. Thanks to this, she could devote more time to analyzing energy costs, which at current electricity prices saved the company 4,200 PLN in June alone. The script we implemented automatically categorizes expenses. If the system sees an invoice from a regular steel supplier, it assigns it to the relevant construction project. This allowed for tracking the profitability of each order in real-time, which was previously impossible without hiring an additional person.

The implementation did not require the crew to change their habits. Drivers simply take a photo of the fuel invoice with their phone and send it to a dedicated address. The rest happens by itself. The system recognizes the date, amount, and tax rate, then puts it on the CEO's spending chart. Specifics instead of theory – this approach allowed us to close the first stage of automation in just 11 business days from signing the contract. We are going straight to the summit, so we didn't waste time on unnecessary training on handling complicated interfaces.

Result: 14.3 hours of savings per month

Three months after implementation, in July 2023, we conducted an audit of the results. Numbers don't lie: Mr. Andrzej recovered exactly 14.3 hours a month that he previously spent checking table correctness. On an annual scale, that's 171 hours, or more than a month of full-time work. The CEO invested this time in negotiations with a new contractor from Germany, which resulted in a contract for the delivery of 450 sets of garden furniture. Without order in the finances, this move would have been too risky.

In addition, reporting errors dropped from 8.4% to zero in the area of digital invoices. The system only flags documents that are illegible or have incorrect tax data, which happens once every 150 invoices. Thanks to better insight into margins, the company stopped producing the three cheapest chair models, which, after taking into account real transport costs, generated a loss. This decision increased the company's operating profit by 12.7% in the third quarter of 2023 without increasing employment.

Automating reporting also allowed for faster response to payment bottlenecks. The system sends a notification to the CEO when a key customer is more than 48 hours late with payment. Previously, such information only surfaced during the month's summary, when it was too late for amicable talks. Now the company has full financial liquidity, and the average waiting time for a transfer from debtors has decreased by 9 days. This is a specific result that translates into the security of the entire business.

How to implement this at your place without a revolution

Many people ask us if such automation requires an IT person on staff. The answer is: no. The entire system is based on ready-made tools that we connected into a logical whole. The cost of maintaining this infrastructure is less than 150 PLN per month. We verify facts in 48 hours, and in that time we are able to assess whether your company can also shave those dozen or so hours off the CEO's schedule. We don't promise miracles; we show hard data from our previous projects.

The first step is always an audit of document flow. You have to check who physically touches the invoice and how many times the same data is rewritten into different systems. In the company in Nowy Targ, an invoice was entered into the accounting system, then into the CEO's Excel sheet, and finally into the production planning system. This is triple work that generates no profit. Our task is to make the data entered once flow freely to where it is needed.

If you feel that your time is slipping through your fingers while checking finances, it's a sign that the system is poorly designed. Tatry Strategy Group is not in the business of writing long strategies that end up in a drawer. We implement tools that work right away. Scaling a business starts with order in the foundations, and finances are the most important of them. Numbers don't lie – order in data means more money in the account and more time for what's most important in business.

Specifics instead of theory. You don't need expensive software to know how much you are earning this second.