How Pinfold Cut Reconciliation from 5 Days to 2 and Went MTD-Ready
Pinfold is a Suffolk-based outsourced bookkeeping firm specialising in the hospitality and retail sectors. With a team of ten, Pinfold manages 6000 invoices per month across a broad client base — the kind of back-office work where speed, accuracy and auditability aren't optional extras.
Before Lightyear, the team ran on a system that required everything to be typed in manually, kept documents in a separate silo, and offered no line-item extraction. Statement reconciliation for a single client could take around 5 days. Since switching to Lightyear, Pinfold has cut that same process down to 2 days. With Making Tax Digital compliance increasingly front of mind for Pinfold's clients, they have consolidated all invoices into a single, searchable, audit-ready system.
Manual Processing Costing Pinfold Days
Before Lightyear, Pinfold relied on Paperless, a system that required manual data entry for every invoice, with no line-item extraction.
“Paperless wasn’t very user-friendly. Everything had to be manually typed in. The documents didn't transfer over, so if you wanted to look at a document, you had to go back to a separate file to pull it out.” Kelly Boyce, Managing Director.
For Pinfold, managing high volumes of invoices across multiple hospitality and retail clients meant time-consuming manual processes, which created a compounding problem.
“We had to give Accountants access to 2 entirely separate systems to review client records, and retrieve invoices at year-end. It was a laborious process and took them hours and hours.”
Statement reconciliation added further pressure. Sometimes running the full month-end reconciliation manually could take an entire week.
What Pinfold needed was a solution that could handle high invoice volumes, automatically extract line-item data, integrate cleanly with Xero, and keep everything in one searchable, audit-ready place.
Everything had to be typed in manually. If we wanted to look at a document, we had to go back to a separate file to retrieve it.
5 Years and Counting: Why Pinfold Stays With Lightyear
Pinfold's move to Lightyear came through an early recommendation from a colleague, when the team was also transitioning from Sage to Xero.
“The timing made Lightyear a natural fit, and we have been with Lightyear for nearly 5 years.”
For Pinfold, the decision has always come back to functionality.
“We have stuck with Lightyear because the functionality is still quite high-level. Its line extraction feature is quite unique. There aren’t many systems that can do that. That’s a keeper.”
Compliance Made Easy With 100% Accurate Data
Making Tax Digital compliance has made reliable digital record-keeping a non-negotiable. Lightyear keeps every invoice stored, searchable, and exportable in one place, so the team can respond to any audit or accountant query without scrambling across systems.
“Being able to export the invoices from Lightyear into Xero means it's all in one place, including a full audit trail on the invoice.”
Previously, Pinfold’s Accountants needed access to multiple systems to review client records. With Lightyear, once data is extracted and verified, it transfers to Xero cleanly and accurately, eliminating the need for spreadsheets or access to a second system. Thus, maintaining MTD’s digital linking requirements.
“The data transfer from Lightyear to Xero is 100% accurate. This means our Accountants only need access to Xero rather than multiple systems.”
That accessibility matters because clients frequently need to retrieve invoices from months or even years prior. Kelly's team can pull up a full invoice history in Lightyear within minutes, compared to their previous system, which had no supplier search capability.
“Sometimes clients ask for something that they bought 3 years ago. With Lightyear, we're able to supply that in minutes because it is digitally stored and easily searchable.”
For Pinfold's clients, that searchability has direct compliance implications. With Making Tax Digital requiring businesses to maintain accurate, accessible digital records, being able to retrieve any invoice quickly is essential.
“Lightyear maintains the digital link between invoices and Xero, which means our clients stay Making Tax Digital compliant without any extra effort.”
The line item extraction feature in Lightyear is a big deal for us. It’s a keeper.
From 5 Days to 2: Reconciliation Transformed
The shift from Paperless to Lightyear addressed Pinfold's core pain points almost immediately. At scale, the cumulative time saving is significant.
“We've gone from taking probably 5 days to do the full month-end reconciliation to around 2 days with Lightyear’s automatic statement reconciliation feature.”
Before, manual processing used to take hours of the team's week. With Lightyear, invoice processing now takes roughly an hour a day, a reduction that has directly expanded Pinfold's capacity to take on and retain clients without adding headcount.
“If we didn't have Lightyear and we were doing stuff manually, we'd have to employ somebody else.”
Beyond time savings, consolidating invoices into a single, exportable digital record has taken the stress out of audit season. With all invoice data stored in Lightyear and exported cleanly into Xero, Pinfold’s clients can demonstrate Making Tax Digital compliance whenever required.
When asked if Kelly would recommend Lightyear to other businesses for AP automation, she said:
“For high-volume businesses, we would definitely recommend Lightyear. It's really good at what it does, and that's why we've stuck with it.”
Stay MTD-ready with Lightyear