The problem: death by a thousand clicks
As a vendor to one of the world's largest retailers, our client processed thousands of invoices through a complex payment-on-request system. There was no API and no automation — just a tedious manual process that took 5 to 7 minutes per transaction.
Getting paid required a three-stage process, and every stage was manual. Each cycle meant clicking, typing, downloading, uploading, and verifying — and as sales grew, invoice volume grew with it. The process simply didn't scale:
- Request authorization — log into the retailer's vendor portal, enter order details, and wait for approval
- Generate the payment request — return to the payment platform and manually type every line item, quantity, price, and the authorization number
- Upload supporting documents — download the invoice PDF from the main system, upload it to the retailer's portal, then finally submit
One-click automation
We built a custom automation bot that integrated directly with the client's CRM. What once took 5-7 minutes of clicking, waiting, and data entry now happens with a single button press.
From the user's perspective the entire process takes about two seconds: they click, the bot confirms completion, and they move to the next invoice. Under the hood, the bot runs the full three-step workflow:
- An employee identifies an invoice ready for payment — the one step that still needs human judgment
- The employee clicks one button, and the automation begins
- The bot logs into the retailer's portal and submits the authorization request, creates the payment request with all line items and the authorization number, then downloads the invoice PDF and uploads it before submitting
The technical approach
The automation uses browser automation — similar to how testing frameworks work — to drive the retailer's portal. With no API available, we had to work with the existing web interface.
Key considerations in the build:
- Security — credentials are handled securely and never exposed
- Error handling — the bot detects when something goes wrong and alerts the user
- Logging — every action is tracked for audit purposes
- Integration — it works directly inside the existing CRM workflow, so the team never had to learn a new system
The results
Since 2022, the bot has processed more than 15,000 invoices. At roughly six minutes each, that is over 1,500 hours of manual work that simply vanished — about $50,000 to $60,000 in direct labor savings at typical costs. The bigger win: with the AR team no longer buried in data entry, they could finally chase outstanding payments, driving a $400,000 improvement in collections.
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Time per invoice | 5-7 minutes | ~2 seconds |
| Total invoices processed | 15,000+ | 15,000+ |
| Hours saved | 0 | 1,500+ |
Is this your situation?
If your team spends hours on repetitive data entry — logging into portals, clicking through screens, entering the same information in multiple places — there is very likely an automation opportunity hiding in plain sight.
The best candidates are high-volume, repetitive, low-judgment processes with no clean API to lean on. Sometimes a relatively small investment in automation pays for itself many times over.