How a Lisbon Accounting Firm Saved 350 Hours and €7,000 a Year
An accounting firm with 45 clients and 3 staff faced the usual problem: hours lost copying bank statements by hand. Here's how automation reshaped their workflow.
Firm Profile
* Representative figures based on real metrics from Portuguese firms of similar size. Name withheld for confidentiality.
The Challenge
The firm handled accounting for 45 companies, mostly SMEs in the Lisbon area. Each client had on average 2 bank accounts at different banks (CGD, Millennium BCP, Santander, Novo Banco, BPI, Crédito Agrícola).
Every month the routine was the same:
Before automation:
- One staff member spent 3–4 days a month doing nothing but copying statements
- Frequent errors forced line-by-line re-checks of hundreds of rows
- Bank reconciliation pushed month-end close out by 5–7 days
- During quarterly VAT, the stress multiplied
The Solution
The firm adopted Bank2PDF on the Professional plan (€49.99/month, 500 pages). Implementation took under an hour:
- Signed up and ran the free trial on 3 different statements
- Validated the output against the previous month's statements
- Trained the team (10 minutes — drag PDF, download Excel)
- Wired the output into their existing PHC workflow
Results
From 30h to 3h per month
Reinvested in advisory work
After subscription cost
Before vs. After
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly time on statements | 30 hours | 3 hours |
| Month-end close | Day 20–25 | Day 10–12 |
| Reconciliation errors | 5–10 per month | 0–1 per month |
| Staff required | 1 dedicated | Anyone (5 min) |
| Client capacity | 45 (at capacity) | 60+ (same team) |
| Monthly cost | ~€600 (labour) | €49.99 (subscription) |
The Unexpected Upside
Beyond the direct savings, the firm was able to:
- Onboard 12 new clients without hiring — freed-up hours absorbed the extra workload
- Offer tax advisory — the employee who used to copy statements shifted to tax planning
- Close the books earlier — clients get reports by day 12, boosting satisfaction
- Cut team stress — the firm's most hated task simply disappeared
“The best decision we made this year. I can't believe we put up with copying statements by hand for so long.”
— Firm principal
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