One of Tinka Consulting’s clients, NOUS, is a creative agency that specialises in branding and delivering creative services such as digital campaigns and website design. With a multi-layered approval process and steadily growing business, NOUS struggled to keep up with its manual finance processes, causing delays and inefficiencies for both approvers and the admin team.

NOUS’ team of 20 staff found it hard to stay on top of the old manual approval process they’d used for years, which involved up to four steps. This AP process involved several different stakeholders who all had to review and approve documents and files before they could be finalised. This process couldn’t get any more manual and time intensive, with files being sent back and forth via email and approvers having to sift through multiple versions to keep track of changes.

To understand NOUS’ problem, it’s helpful to understand the full extent of this approval process. The company’s administrative staff had to manually open and check each folder and all the PDFs. Some folders had up to 80 files, taking up a huge amount of time. It was the admin team’s job to ensure that all documents had been signed and approved. After this was done, they could then move to the next step and make payment.

Overall, this was a time-consuming and error-prone process. The inefficiencies and delays left decision-makers and admin staff confused and frustrated. Recognising the need for a more efficient and streamlined approach, NOUS turned to Tinka Consulting and asked the team to help find a tech solution to solve these problems.

Tinka Consulting didn’t hesitate to recommend ApprovalMax to NOUS, and for good reason. With ApprovalMax, NOUS automated its approval process and freed administrative staff’s time from managing approvals and chasing decision-makers. By transferring its detailed approval rules to the new system, NOUS maintained the same level of control and oversight, while notifications made it easier for approvers to keep track of their work.

As a result, the company saved the equivalent of one full-time employee (FTE) in time and generated an impressive estimated ROI of AUD$40k. With ApprovalMax, NOUS streamlined its approval process, allowing staff to focus on more valuable operational tasks that contribute to business growth.