How a UK freight brokerage cut debtor days from 60 to under 10

A finance team billing between 100 and 500 invoices a week, across three companies.

The results

Debtor days60 → under 10

cash released as soon as jobs are invoiced

Time to invoice3 days → 2 hours

hands-on time for the weekly billing run of 100 to 500 invoices

InvoicingReal time

finance has caught up and is moving to invoicing as jobs complete

The short version

Jobs ready to bill are found and grouped by client.
Missing paperwork is flagged before anything goes out.
Finance chooses what to bill and reviews every draft.
Invoice numbers are written back to the runsheet.

Three days of copy, paste, check, repeat

Every completed job lived in a shared Excel spreadsheet, the runsheet. To bill a client, someone filtered the sheet for their jobs, then copied each one into Xero, line by line and field by field. Then they did it again for the next job. And the next. Up to 500 times a week.

For every single invoice, they downloaded the proof of delivery and attached it by hand, checked the purchase order number, and chased anything that was missing. Once the invoice was raised, its number was copied back into the spreadsheet so the two stayed in step.

It was slow, and it was easy to get wrong. A mistyped amount, a missed job or an invoice number that never made it back to the sheet meant more checking, more chasing and awkward conversations with customers. Across the whole company, billing took three days. And because the company's finance facility only releases cash once a job is invoiced, every day of delay held money back.

Spreadsheets everywhereCopy and paste, again and againChecking every line by handEasy to make mistakesThree days every billing run

Before and after

From typing every line to choosing and approving

Before: finance finds completed jobs, types each into Xero, downloads and attaches proof, chases missing PO numbers and copies invoice numbers back, taking 3 days. After: jobs are grouped by client and missing paperwork flagged automatically, finance chooses what to bill, invoices are created with proof attached, finance reviews the drafts and the runsheet is updated, taking 2 hours.

Now completed jobs come straight from the company's own records into a simple tool finance uses in their browser. The invoices are prepared, checked and created in minutes, with the proof of delivery already attached, and the team's time goes on reviewing and approving.

What we built

An invoicing assistant that does the legwork

Decisions that stay with people

Finance chooses which clients and jobs to bill
Finance decides how to handle jobs missing paperwork
Finance approves every draft in Xero before it's sent

Finds what's ready to bill. Reads completed jobs from the runsheet and groups them by client, with the total for each.
Holds back incomplete invoices. Flags jobs still waiting on a purchase order number or proof of delivery.
Creates the invoices. One invoice per job or one weekly invoice per client, with the right contact and payment terms.
Attaches the proof of delivery. Fetched from the freight exchange, the online marketplace where loads are booked, and added to the invoice automatically.
Closes the loop. Writes each invoice number back to the runsheet, and flags any job the runsheet and Xero disagree on.
Rolled out by their own IT team. Installed for staff inside the tools they already use.

How the team changed

From typing invoices to checking and approving them

Finance and operations were involved from the first billing run we timed, and helped test every stage. It was rolled out by the company's own IT team, and billing day is now spent checking and approving rather than typing.

With billing caught up, finance can chase this week's money and bring down older debt across the whole company. They're now moving to invoicing in real time, so cash arrives sooner.

From first conversation to daily use

Discovery
Sat with finance and timed a full billing run.
Build
A first working version creating draft invoices from real jobs.
Side by side
Checked against invoices raised the old way.
Go live
The whole finance team billing with it, improved in small batches.

Before60 debtor days, three days to invoice

AfterUnder 10 debtor days, two hours a week

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Next case studyHow a UK freight brokerage cut quoting from 6 minutes to 45 secondsA quoting team across UK, European and chartering work

Three days of copy, paste, check, repeat

From typing every line to choosing and approving

An invoicing assistant that does the legwork

Decisions that stay with people

From typing invoices to checking and approving them

From first conversation to daily use

Discovery

Build

Side by side

Go live

Tell us which job eats your team's week