The Challenge: An Unsustainable Manual Workflow
As Monthend’s client list expanded, their Accounts Payable data entry team faced a mounting crisis of manual labor. The existing process relied heavily on staff members extracting data from invoices using industry agnostic tools and re-keying that information into construction management systems. This "brute force" approach required an average of 3-15 hours per client, per month just to handle basic transaction creation.
The heavy reliance on manual entry created a ceiling for growth; adding new clients meant hiring more staff at a 1:1 ratio. Furthermore, the fatigue of repetitive data entry led to a higher error rate in coding, forcing the team to spend additional hours on month-end corrections and reconciliations.
The Solution: A Systemized A/P Engine
To break this cycle, Monthend overhauled their workflow by implementing an automated A/P processing solution, Controllr. Controllr served as a digital gateway, capturing invoices through a centralized intake and utilizing intelligent OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to identify line items, tax amounts, and vendor details automatically.
The firm standardized their approval routing, moving away from fragmented email approvals to a structured digital sequence. By integrating this workflow directly with Quickbooks and their practice workflows, Monthend ensured that once an invoice was approved, the transaction was created and synced with only a rare keystroke from a staff accountant.
The Impact: Drastic Time Savings and Accuracy
The results of the transformation were immediate and measurable. By removing the manual burden of data entry, Monthend reduced the time spent on transaction creation by 2/3rd's. This 66% reduction in labor allowed existing staff to manage 2x more clients than previously possible without increasing headcount.
Beyond the time savings, the firm saw improvement in data accuracy. Automated matching ensured that invoices were coded correctly every time, virtually eliminating the need for mid-month corrections. Employee morale also saw a significant boost, as staff shifted their focus from clerical data entry to higher-level financial analysis and client advisory.
A Foundation for Profitable Growth
By turning A/P from a manual bottleneck into a streamlined, automated engine, Monthend successfully decoupled their revenue growth from their labor costs. The firm now operates with a scalable framework where onboarding a new client adds less direct labor and administrative overhead. This transformation has not only improved their bottom line by reducing direct costs, but has also positioned Monthend as a tech-forward leader in the accounting space.
