Invoice automation: from 4 days to 32 minutes a month

Mess in the figures, or 4 days lost on clicking

At 'Budomex' in Radomsko, the invoicing process looked like it was from the previous decade. Mrs. Halina, who has been handling settlements there since May 2017, had to open three different systems every month to close sales. Data from the online store landed in one file, email orders in a second, and correction invoices in a third. Summing it all up took her exactly 32 hours every month. That's four full working days for which the company paid a salary but which brought no new value.

During our audit in February 2024, we calculated that on average every 14th invoice contained an error in the tax ID or gross amount. These mistakes weren't a lack of competence, but pure fatigue. When a person looks at 487 rows in a sheet, their eyes simply refuse to obey. The cost of corrections, calls to customers, and sending corrections by traditional mail was an average of 640 PLN per month. We count every zloty, so these losses immediately caught our attention as the first point to fix.

To be honest, the company owner at first didn't believe it could be done without buying an expensive system for 40 thousand zlotys. However, we at Solvium Strategia Sp. z o.o. don't like fluff about big systems if a simple data bridge is enough. We focused on eliminating manual retyping because that was the bottleneck. We made it clear: either we do it properly in 11 days, or we don't start cooperation at all.

Mrs. Halina made a mistake in every 14th invoice. It wasn't a lack of knowledge, but pure exhaustion from 487 rows in Excel.

Building a bridge instead of buying a highway

Instead of persuading the client to get a new ERP system, we decided to build a simple API connector. Our implementation specialist spent exactly 43 hours in the company analyzing the structure of files generated by their old PrestaShop store. It turned out that all the data was there; no one knew how to 'push' it to the Subiekt GT program without human hands. We wrote a script in Python that once a day downloads orders and automatically creates invoice drafts in the accounting system.

Tests lasted from March 12 to 25, 2024. We checked every possible scenario: what happens if a customer provides a wrong postal code, or if an order is paid using two different methods. The system had to be bulletproof. On the third day of tests, the script detected 12 attempts to duplicate invoices that Mrs. Halina previously would have had to catch manually. This was the moment management understood that automation isn't a gadget, but a concrete saving of their money.

Additionally, we introduced a function to automatically send a PDF to the customer right after the payment was posted. Previously, the office sent these emails manually every morning, which took another 47 minutes a day. Now the system does it in 3 seconds after a signal from the bank. Thanks to this, the phone in the secretary's office stopped ringing with questions like 'where is my invoice.' This freed up time for real customer service and sales, not being a 'human email bot'.

Facts on the table: what did Budomex gain?

After the full implementation, which we finished on April 3, 2024, the results were clear. The time needed to handle invoices dropped from 32 hours to exactly 32 minutes per month. That half hour is the time Mrs. Halina just checks the final report generated by our script. She doesn't retype anything, she doesn't click twice. Everything happens in the background while she can handle debt collection, which in three months improved the company's liquidity by 14.6%.

The cost of the entire implementation closed at 4,350 PLN net. Considering the hourly cost of an office worker and the elimination of errors, the investment paid for itself after exactly 74 days. This is what we at Solvium Strategia Sp. z o.o. call real optimization. We don't build castles on sand; we fix processes that waste people's energy. The company owner, Mr. Marek, admitted in June that for the first time in three years he could send the accountant on vacation without fear of returning to a mountain of unfinished paperwork.

It's worth adding that invoice numbering errors dropped to zero. From April 2024 until today (January 2025), the system has not generated a single duplicate number, which previously happened at least twice a month with manual entry. The Tax Office during a routine control in October had nothing to complain about because the document flow became transparent and logical. By the way, the hardest part of the project wasn't writing the code, but convincing the team that technology wouldn't take their jobs, just take away their boring tasks.

Investment in a script for 4,350 PLN paid for itself in 74 days. Since then, the company has saved 31 hours a month.

How to check if time is leaking for you too?

If your employees spend more than 3 hours a week copying data between Excels, it's a sign you are burning budget. At Solvium Strategia Sp. z o.o., we always start by measuring time with a stopwatch. We aren't interested in opinions; we're interested in facts. If an invoice in your company 'travels' from order to accounting for longer than 15 minutes, it means the process is sick. In a modern trading company, this time should be zero because data should flow by itself.

Our method of work in Lodz is simple: we go in, count, cut redundant steps, and leave. We don't stay for months of consultations that lead nowhere. In the case of Budomex, 11 days was enough to regain almost a full week of work on a monthly scale. Ask yourself: what could your best employee do for the company if they suddenly got 4 days off from paperwork? They would probably earn twice as much for you as our implementation costs.

We invite you for a short conversation during which we will assess if your problem can be solved with a script or if you need a deeper change in structure. We don't promise miracles; we promise concrete minutes and zlotys that will stay in your pocket. We operate within a 150 km radius of Lodz, but we implement IT systems all over Poland. We have already reclaimed a total of 3,412 hours for our clients in 2024 alone and we do not intend to slow down.

If an invoice takes longer than 15 minutes from order to accounting, your process is simply sick.