Supplier invoice to payment — Summary

Finance · Accounts officer · Runs 75 per week95% complete5 of 6 confirmed, 1 confirmed but time still missing

1 waiting for a decision

Biggest wins in this workflow

AutomateApprove bills inside the accounting system (step 5)≈ 312h/yr · ~4.8m/run · the chosen Now play

Hands-on time

13 min a run + 45 min a week→ 884 h a year

↻ On their own rhythm: Weekly pay run (a week). Counted at that rhythm, never added into the minutes a run.

1 step not yet timed — real total is higher

Planned to free (accepted)

0m per run

≈ 0 hours a year back to the team once done

Still open (recommendations to review)

5m per run

0 h a year planned + 312 h a year open + 572 h a year untouched = 884 h a year

≈ 312 hours a year if all adopted. Accepted ones sit under Planned to free; nothing here counts more than its step costs

Already automated today

0 of 6 steps

0m of hands-on time is on partly systematised steps — honest baseline, not opportunity

Top friction points

Worst first — how much a step hurts, multiplied by how long it takes. So a long mildly annoying step can outrank a short painful one.

Step	Who does it	Kind of pain	Hurts	Time	Why it hurts
Rank 1, step 5, Chase approval by email	Accounts officer	Waste	badly	8m	Same approval asked twice
Rank 2, step 3, Match to order and docket	Accounts officer	Protective	a bit	4m	Catches wrong prices and short deliveries before they're paid
Rank 3, step 4, Email manager for approval	Managers	Waste	a lot	—unranked	The approval sits in a manager's inbox, away from the bill

Recommendations

To review1

⚙ Let a system do these (1)~4.8m/run

Step 5Automatequick fix

Approve bills inside the accounting system

✓ Runs on what you have · using Finance system access (AP/AR)

~4.8m per run of the step's 8m · the chosen Now play

How ▾

Change: Every bill is emailed to a manager and then chased by email: about 8 minutes of the accounts officer's time on each of 75 invoices a week, 10 hours a week. Send each bill for approval inside the accounting system you already use, and managers approve it there, not by email. About 6 of those 10 hours come back.

How: Turn on bill approval in the accounting system you already use and send each matched bill to its manager there.

First step: This week, send one supplier's bills for approval in the accounting system instead of by email.

Why: 75 invoices a week, each chased by email for about 8 minutes: the same approval asked twice.

⚠ Watch out: Keep the match to order and docket before approval: it catches wrong prices and short deliveries.

Accepted0

None

Not now0

None

Manual hand-offs between systems

1 → 2Data moves from Shared inbox to Accounting system by hand here.

Worked out from the systems named on each step, so check it against how the work really goes. No time or cost is counted for these.