Inside an operational diagnostic
A clear case.
Before you build.
See how a recurring administrative workflow becomes a defined pilot with explicit assumptions, ownership, and success measures.
01 / The brief
Supplier invoice intake & approval
A finance team receives invoices by email, checks purchase orders, collects approvals, and records the result. Context moves between inboxes, spreadsheets, and a finance system.
- Workflow owner
- Finance operations
- Scope
- Intake to approved record
- System boundary
- Email · ERP · approval queue
- Human decision
- Financial approval
200 invoices × 12 minutes of active handling.
A 60% recoverable share to validate in a pilot.
Time recovered only matters if the workflow remains accurate and accountable.
The 24-hour estimate is a planning assumption. Review effort is part of handling time. Software, implementation, and ongoing operating costs need a separate business case.
02 / The process
Follow the work.
Find the friction.
| Stage | Current state | Proposed workflow | Evidence to collect |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01Capture | Copy invoice details from email into a spreadsheet. | Extract a draft record with a link to its source. | Field accuracy and time spent correcting the draft. |
| 02Check | Look up suppliers, purchase orders, and duplicate invoices. | Apply deterministic matching rules; queue missing or conflicting records. | Duplicate detection, unmatched records, and exception volume. |
| 03Approve | Chase the right approver and reconstruct the context. | Route the evidence to a named approver. Payment remains a human decision. | Approval waiting time and completeness of the audit trail. |
| 04Record | Re-enter the approved details in the finance system. | Write approved records through a controlled integration with safe retries. | Reconciliation results, failed writes, and recovery time. |
03 / The smallest useful pilot
Automate the preparation.
Keep the decision.
Begin with invoice intake and validation for one agreed supplier group. Prepare a reviewable record and its evidence before enabling any write to the finance system.
Explore workflow auditsA bounded first release
- One intake channel and one record type
- Representative normal cases and exceptions
- Read access first; approved writes in a later gate
- A named approver and a manual fallback
- A measured comparison with the original workflow
Exclude payment execution, supplier bank-detail changes, and wider process changes from this initial scope.
04 / The investment decision
Decide with evidence.
Example acceptance gates. Thresholds and test cases are agreed for the actual engagement.
Quality
Agree an acceptable field-accuracy threshold using representative invoices, including unusual formats.
Control
Require a named person to approve financial actions. Validate permission and exception boundaries.
Reliability
Pass duplicate-event, failed-write, and reconciliation tests before enabling production writes.
Value
Compare total handling and review time with the baseline, then include delivery and running costs.
A useful diagnostic supports all three decisions. Expand only when quality, controls, and the business case meet the agreed criteria.
Our delivery standardsWhat is your
version of this workflow?
Bring the process, the tools, and the friction. We will use that context to define a useful diagnostic.
Discuss a similar workflowThe illustrative assumptions will be included in your editable inquiry draft.