How Protech Saves 33+ Hours Monthly With AP Automation
Protech is an Australian workforce solutions provider, specialising in recruitment, labour hire and workforce management across technical industries with over 25 offices nationwide. Before Lightyear, Protech manually processed 1,000+ invoices monthly, with limited approval visibility. Lightyear reduced processing time from 10–15 minutes to around 2 minutes per invoice, while automated reconciliation and approval tracking improved visibility, reduced admin and freed the team to focus on process improvements.
+
hours saved per month
%+
more efficient AP
mins per invoice
centralised audit trail
Manual Invoicing With Limited Visibility
Protech’s AP process was largely manual, with more than 1,000 invoices to manage every month.
“We were heavily reliant on email. An invoice would come into the AP inbox, we'd send it to someone for approval, save the PDF, enter it manually into the system and then, come payment time, go back in and find the PDFs to put them into a payment run. It was all very manual.” - Scott Price, Finance Operations Manager
The lack of a centralised approval process also meant there was no reliable way to track how long invoices had been waiting for approval. The team had to search through sent emails to establish when an invoice had been sent.
“There was no time limit because it depended on when the person saw the email. We had no audit trail to tell us when something had been sent or how long it had been waiting. Some invoices were approved immediately, others took 3 or 4 days, and some were put on hold without anyone telling us.”
Without clear visibility into invoice and payment statuses, the team also spent unnecessary time chasing outstanding items and responding to supplier payment reminders.
“We'd end up wasting a lot of time going through statements and payment reminder emails. That time was unnecessary if you already knew where an invoice was in the process.”
The manual workload left little room for the team to focus on improvements or other priorities. Protech needed a more efficient way to manage accounts payable, with greater visibility and control over the entire process.
Our AP officer would spend all her time chasing people, entering invoices and dealing with supplier queries.
AP Automation That Processes Invoices in <2 Minutes
“Instead of spending 10–15 minutes processing an invoice, we can now do it in around 2 minutes with Lightyear. Across 1,000 invoices a month, that's potentially 33+ hours saved every month.”
Lightyear has also given Protech a clear audit trail and greater control over the approval process.
“With Lightyear, we can track when an invoice was sent and see how long it's been waiting for approval. We've got that audit trail now, so we don't have to waste time hunting for it.”
Scott highlighted that the statement reconciliation feature has further reduced manual work by automatically matching supplier statements against invoices in the system.
“Instead of going through 20 invoices, we're just looking at the 2 that might be missing from the statement. Lightyear is doing the heavy lifting we used to have to do manually.”
For a multi-entity business like Protech, one of the biggest improvements has been the visibility across its 12 entities.
“Being able to go to the parent dashboard and see straight away that one entity has 45 invoices awaiting approval and another has 60 gives us real oversight. We can go directly to the people responsible, find out if there's an issue and get things moving. That's probably the biggest advantage compared with where we were before.”
Lightyear helps track when an invoice was sent, so we can structure approval time.
50% More Efficient AP Process
With less time spent chasing approvals, searching for documents and preparing payment runs, Protech’s accounts payable team can focus on improving internal processes and working more efficiently across the business.
“Lightyear has improved our accounts payable efficiency by more than 50%.”
The time saved with Lightyear has allowed Scott’s team to focus on tasks beyond AP.
“The team now has the capacity to take on month-end tasks and other responsibilities. Instead of simply processing invoices, the team can focus on strategic questions like, why are we getting 400 invoices from one supplier, or why are we using 15 different suppliers for the same job?”
When we asked Scott what he'd advise businesses considering Lightyear to automate their accounts payable, he said:
“Lightyear gives you so much more than time savings. It gives you the control and visibility to set KPIs, track how quickly tasks are being completed and see where delays are happening in the approval process. If people are consistently taking days to approve invoices, you can identify the bottlenecks and hold them accountable. It's these behind-the-scenes benefits of Lightyear that I would highlight the most.”
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