Caught myself editing invoices for 3 years before realizing they were pointless

I used to hand check every single invoice line against the PO, then the packing slip, then the delivery receipt. Took me about 20 minutes per vendor, and I did it for all 14 of our regular suppliers. Turns out two of them had been sending clean, matched docs the whole time. A temp accountant pointed out that for those two, the error rate was zero over 18 straight months of records. I stopped checking those two and cut my month end close time by nearly 3 hours. Anyone else hold onto a step just because you started doing it that way?

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aaron_ellis421d ago

The part about "error rate was zero over 18 straight months" really hit me. I used to be all about doing everything the same way, every time, no exceptions. My thinking was that if you stop checking, that's when something slips through, and it's not worth the risk just to save a few hours. But seeing it laid out like that, with actual numbers proving it's been perfect for a year and a half, makes me realize I was just stuck in a habit, not making a smart choice. I've got a few vendors at work where I know the docs are always clean, yet I still double check them out of pure stubbornness. You've honestly changed my mind here, and I'm going to look at my own process with fresh eyes this week.