Use cases by role
If you run the back office
The job everything nobody else wants to chase passes through.
Everything with paper behind it passes through the back office: supplier onboarding, the client contract, whatever the accountants are asking for, the certificate needed to get an invoice paid. Almost always urgent and almost always for yesterday.
The three that give back the most time
- 1
Let onboarding ask for itself
Suppliers and clients always need the same things. Built once, chasing stops being your job.
- 2
Let expiries warn you
Insurance, tax clearance, licences. Nobody should be carrying that in their head.
- 3
Make searching actually search
If finding a three-year-old client contract takes half an hour, the structure is wrong — or no structure is needed and searching is enough.
| What you get asked | How long today | How long it should be |
|---|---|---|
| "Send me this client's contract" | Half an hour hunting | One search |
| "Is this supplier tax-cleared?" | An email and a wait | Look at it |
| "I need everything on this site for the accountants" | A morning | One download |
Watch out
Watch out for the email changing the bank details of a "long-standing" supplier. It is the commonest fraud against this role, and it works because it arrives in a hurry with a tone that seems normal. Confirm by phone, on a number you already had.
Worth knowing
When someone asks you for the same thing a third time in one week, that is exactly the document worth making reachable in two clicks.
›Can I give the accountants access?
Yes, read-only and scoped. They do not need to be administrators.
›What about old paper files?
Scan what gets consulted, not everything. Digitising twenty years of archive is rarely finished.
›Is it worth it if we are only a few?
Especially if you are few: there is nobody to delegate to.
A real case
The situation
In a forty-person company, one person handles onboarding, contracts and the accountants.
What you do
- Builds supplier onboarding as a process
- Marks the expiry dates
- Gives the accountants read-only access
What you get
Stops being the bottleneck for four people who ask them for things every day.
The situation
Approvals are chased by email.
What you do
- Launches the approval with its status
What you get
You see who is outstanding without asking.
The situation
The archive depends on how each person names things.
What you do
- Agrees the convention and applies it
What you get
Anyone finds the same thing.
The situation
Month end is spent hunting documents.
What you do
- Gathers the period's material into a file
What you get
The close stops being a search.
The situation
A supplier chases a payment already made.
What you do
- Checks the supplier's file
What you get
The answer comes from the archive.
The situation
Unapproved invoices pile up.
What you do
- Checks what is outstanding per owner
What you get
The chase is aimed.
This article answers
- organise company documentation
- small business back office paperwork
- i cannot find a client's documents
- manage onboarding and invoices