The reality of financial operations
In most small and medium businesses, time is the scarcest resource. Yet there is a quiet, constant job that consumes hours and energy without adding direct value: chasing invoices.
Every time a supplier delays sending theirs, or a customer pays late, someone on the team has to call, write an email, check folders, search Drive, follow up again. A repetitive, low‑visibility process, but an inevitable one.
We call it the invisible tax of financial management. It is not in the P&L, it does not show up in the expense sheet, but it is paid every month. It is the cost in time, frustration and lost opportunities for founders, the CFO or the admin who could be doing more strategic work.
In numbers, this tax can be brutal. Two hours a week chasing invoices is more than 100 hours a year. Multiply that by the hourly cost of someone on the team and it becomes thousands of euros no one budgeted for.
It’s not just collection
The problem does not end when the invoice appears in the inbox. Often, that is where it begins.
Invoices that never arrive: some suppliers simply forget or send them late, creating gaps in accounting and quarter‑end stress.
Duplicate files: different versions of the same invoice with names like "Original_final_v2.pdf" that confuse and multiply errors.
Lost emails: invoices buried among newsletters, automated notifications or internal threads, hard to find weeks later.
All of this leads to human dependency. Too many companies rely on someone remembering to check, follow up or forward. That fragility turns into payment delays, tax filings with incomplete information or even fines due to avoidable mistakes.
The critical point is that this invisible tax is paid not only in time but also in risk: every missing invoice is a hole in the company’s financial picture.
And the solution? Technology
Chasing invoices should not be human work. It is repetitive, follows the same steps, and when done manually it creates errors and fatigue.
The alternative is to automate collection: systems locate, download and organize invoices from the start. Duplicates are eliminated, forgetfulness is reduced and visibility over financial information increases.
Quarter‑end stops being a race against the clock, and teams can focus on strategic decisions, not document hunting.
At Numerand we believe this is how finance should work: no chasing, no gaps, everything centralized from the source.