Case study · Accounting
Read, Extract, Repeat
A Canadian accounting firm was entering a full year of client bank documents by hand to prepare year-end financials — up to 25 hours per client file, done by qualified financial staff. We built the system that reads and structures them. The same work now takes 10 hours, spent reviewing rather than typing.
Result
per client file · one year of documents
The situation
Year-end financials require working through a year of client documents. At this firm that meant someone opening each one and typing the lines into a spreadsheet, for every client.
- The time
- Up to 25 hours of administrative work per client file.
- The people
- Done by trained financial professionals. In busy season, capacity was limited by typing speed rather than expertise.
- The errors
- Copying numbers for hours produces mistakes, and finding them later costs more than the entry did.
What arrives
What comes out
| Date | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 03/02 | E-TRANSFER RECEIVED Revenue | +1,240.00 |
| 03/03 | CHEQUE #1042 Supplies | -389.50 |
| 03/05 | PAYROLL DEPOSIT Payroll | +2,600.00 |
| 03/07 | UTILITY PAYMENT Utilities | -212.40 |
| 03/09 | CARD PURCHASE Office | -84.15 |
| 03/11 | WIRE — UNKNOWN REF Review | +3,150.00 |
| 03/14 | SERVICE FEE Bank fees | -14.95 |
A messy, handwritten record becomes a clean, classified spreadsheet.
Illustrative example, not an actual client document.
The result
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Time per client file | 25 hours | 10 hours |
| Nature of the work | Typing | Reviewing |
| Limit on capacity | Administrative hours | Professional judgement |
The remaining hours go to the part that needs a qualified person. Across a full client base, that is hundreds of hours returned without adding headcount.
"We aren't doing data entry anymore. The workflow handles the extraction, and our team simply reviews the output. It has completely changed our capacity."
Partner, Canadian accounting firm
Where else this applies
The specifics were financial documents and an accounting firm. The pattern is far broader: any business receiving paperwork in inconsistent formats and paying skilled people to retype it.
It also generalizes past documents entirely. The same approach applies to any repetitive, rule-based work that currently runs on someone's patience.
Have something similar?
Tell us what the work looks like today. The first conversation costs nothing.
Book a consultation