Fidélis & Associados (real case — data altered under NDA) is an accounting firm in Lisbon with 14 staff members and a portfolio of 200 clients, ranging from sole traders to SMEs with 50 employees. For years, the monthly close was a ritual of stress: three full days dedicated to collecting documents, reconciling accounts and preparing reports. Clients sent invoices by email, WhatsApp, in plastic bags and, occasionally, in shoe boxes. This article describes how we transformed that chaos into 3 hours of supervised work.
The Document Collection Nightmare
The biggest problem for accounting firms in Portugal is not technical — it is logistical. The accounting competence exists. What is missing is an efficient system to collect, organise and process client documentation.
At Fidélis & Associados, the situation was as follows: of the 200 clients, around 60% sent documentation by email (frequently without any organisation, with invoices from different months mixed into the same PDF). Another 25% delivered documentation in paper form, forcing the team to scan everything manually. The remaining 15% used creative methods — mobile phone photographs sent via WhatsApp, Google Drive folders shared chaotically, or simply turning up at the office with documents under their arm.
The result: during the first 5 working days of each month, the team dedicated itself almost exclusively to collecting, organising and classifying documents. Reminder phone calls to clients who had not yet sent their documentation consumed, on average, 12 hours per month. And even so, around 30% of clients delivered late, delaying the entire closing process.
Bank reconciliation was another pain point. Each bank statement was cross-checked manually against the invoices received. For a client with 80 to 100 monthly transactions, this process took 45 minutes to 1 hour. Multiplied by 200 clients, the total time was devastating.
The Numbers Before the Transformation
• Monthly close time: 3 full days (24 hours of effective work).
• Hours spent on document collection: 40 hours/month (entire team combined).
• Hours on manual bank reconciliation: 35 hours/month.
• Reminder phone calls: 12 hours/month.
• Classification errors: average of 8 to 12 per month (discovered during the review phase).
• Clients who delivered documentation on time: 70%.
• Team satisfaction (internal survey): 4.2 out of 10.
The Solution: Digital Portal with OCR and Automated Reconciliation
The transformation was built on three integrated components, implemented over the course of 8 weeks.
Component 1: Document Submission Portal
We created a web portal where each client had a personal account. The process was simple: the client accessed the portal, uploaded documents (invoices, receipts, statements) by dragging them to the upload area, and the system organised everything automatically by type and date.
The portal sent automated reminders by email and SMS: on the 25th of the month (advance notice), on the 1st (main reminder), on the 3rd (urgent reminder) and on the 5th (final alert indicating that the close may be delayed). This cadence eliminated reminder phone calls almost entirely.
For less technology-savvy clients, we maintained the option of sending documents by email — but with a difference: the system received the email, extracted the attachments automatically and placed them in the client's portal, classified by date of receipt.
In the first two months, the rate of clients who delivered documentation on time rose from 70% to 92%. By the third month, it reached 96%.
Component 2: Intelligent OCR with Automated Classification
Each document uploaded to the portal passed through an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engine that automatically extracted the essential data: supplier tax ID, invoice date, number, total amount, VAT and description. The system classified the expense into the correct accounting account based on rules learned over time.
In the first 30 days, the accuracy of automatic classification was 78%. After 90 days, with manual adjustments serving as training for the system, accuracy rose to 94%. This meant that, for every 100 documents, only 6 required human intervention in classification — instead of the 100 that were previously classified manually.
The OCR also detected duplicates automatically. If the same document was uploaded twice (for example, by email and by portal upload), the system alerted and prevented the duplication. This detail, apparently simple, eliminated one of the most frequent and difficult-to-detect errors in manual accounting.
Does your firm still lose days on the monthly close?
We implement document portals with OCR and automated reconciliation for accounting firms. Request a free demonstration.
See financial solutions →Component 3: Automated Bank Reconciliation
The third component linked clients' bank statements (imported automatically via bank integration or manual upload) to the invoices already processed by OCR. The system matched each transaction against the available invoices, using matching rules based on amount, date and reference.
For transactions with an exact match (same amount, close date), reconciliation was automatic. For ambiguous transactions, the system presented suggestions to the technician, who validated with a single click. Only transactions without a clear match required manual investigation.
The result was dramatic: reconciliation that previously consumed 35 monthly hours dropped to less than 5 hours — a reduction of 86%.
The Results: Before vs. After
After 90 days of operation with the new system, the numbers were as follows:
• Monthly close time: from 3 days to 3 hours (87.5% reduction).
• Hours on document collection: from 40 to 4 hours/month.
• Hours on bank reconciliation: from 35 to 5 hours/month.
• Reminder phone calls: from 12 hours/month to less than 1 hour.
• Classification errors: from 8–12/month to 1–2/month.
• Clients who deliver on time: from 70% to 96%.
• Team satisfaction: from 4.2 to 8.1 out of 10.
But the most transformative impact was strategic. With 66 hours per month freed from mechanical tasks, the team began offering value-added services: management analysis, tax planning, quarterly review meetings. Six months after implementation, the firm had increased its average revenue per client by 22% — not because it charged more for the same service, but because it began offering services it previously had no time to deliver.
5 Steps for Any Firm to Get Started
1. Measure the real close time. Ask each technician to record, for one month, how much time they spend on each stage of the close. The real numbers are almost always worse than perceived.
2. Start with document collection. It is the stage with the most waste and the easiest to automate. A simple upload portal with automated reminders can be implemented in two weeks.
3. Implement OCR gradually. Start with the 20 clients who send the most documents. Use the first months to train the system and fine-tune the classification rules.
4. Involve clients in the change. Most clients prefer an upload portal to sending disorganised emails — as long as the portal is simple. Communicate the change as a service improvement, not an imposition.
5. Reinvest the freed-up time. The time saved is a strategic asset. Use it to offer new services, improve client relationships or, simply, to improve the team's quality of life.
Conclusion
The monthly accounting close does not have to be a nightmare. With the right tools — a document collection portal, intelligent OCR and automated reconciliation — it is possible to transform days of mechanical work into hours of qualified supervision. Technology does not replace the accountant: it frees them to do the work that truly matters.
If your firm still spends days collecting documents, manually classifying invoices and reconciling accounts line by line, know that a better path exists. And that path does not require replacing the software you already use — it simply requires complementing it with intelligent automation.
