Article
Christer Haimi 5 min read
Why does the same invoice keep taking up your time?
Spend less time finding invoices and explaining purchases. See how a shared way of working with your accountant can be a first step in digital accounting.
Business owners can spend a lot of time on accounting without making a single accounting entry themselves. Searching for invoices, explaining purchases and looking through earlier emails all create small interruptions in the working day. Choosing and learning to use new software can then feel like yet another task.
ACCA, the global professional accountancy body, published its Digital Pathways Playbook in 2025, drawing on input from 1,026 finance professionals in more than 100 countries. In the survey, 62% of respondents identified cost as a barrier to digitalisation, 46% cited skills gaps and 32% a lack of time. Any plans for change need to take these constraints into account.
ACCA recommends starting with one recurring task and building on what you learn. For a small business owner, a useful first step could be to simplify a task that would make a difference as soon as next month.
Start with what takes up time every month
Business owners and their accountants could start by looking at the questions they return to most often. Is time being spent searching for missing invoices, asking for explanations of purchases or entering the same information in several places? This helps them choose a first change based on the business’s own needs.
A clearly defined task makes it easier to agree what people need to learn and to set aside time for it. It also becomes easier to assess which work the software would simplify and whether the expected benefit justifies its cost.
For example, a business owner may always send purchase invoices to the accountant on time, yet the accountant still has to ask follow-up questions. In that case, it is worth looking at what information is missing and how it could be included with the document from the start. The accountant can explain what is needed to continue the work, while the business owner knows who has that information.
Keep the invoice and its supporting information together
If a business wants to track costs by client job, the accountant needs to know which job the materials on a purchase invoice were bought for. The invoice itself may not make this clear. If the question only reaches the business owner at the end of the month, finding the answer may mean checking a calendar, looking through emails or asking the employee who made the purchase.
One option is to agree that the person making the purchase adds the job name or another identifier agreed with the accountant to the invoice straight away. The accountant can then work from the document and the information kept with it. If a follow-up question arises, the answer stays with the same document too.
Before starting, it is worth clarifying what information the accountant actually needs and when it should be provided. The business owner then knows when a job name is enough and when a purchase needs a fuller explanation. The arrangement should be simple enough to follow even on a busy day.
For the business owner, the immediate benefit is avoiding the need to reconstruct the details of a purchase later. The supporting information also provides a basis for allocating the cost to the right job and producing the cost breakdown the business owner needs. This gives the extra detail a clear purpose.
After the first month, the business owner and accountant could review how often they had to request missing information separately and whether the required cost breakdown was available by the agreed deadline. They can then refine the way they work or move on to the next task that repeatedly takes up time.
A simple start and a shared way of working
This example also provides a practical starting point for choosing software. Testing it with one of the business’s own invoices shows how easy it is to add the document and the necessary explanation, and for the accountant to find both. If the current software already supports this, the first improvement could be made there.
Preconfigured settings can make it easier to get started by reducing the technical preparation needed from the business owner and accountant. They still need to agree who adds the documents, what information goes with them and when the business owner will receive the financial information they need. These agreements turn the software’s capabilities into a practical way of working.
Trigon Business provides a preconfigured environment for professional accounting where business owners and accountants can work with the same documents, transactions and financial data. Both can access the explanations and comments added to a document. This makes it possible to start working together without complex configuration.
Accounting firms can use the same approach with their clients in Trigon Partner.
When choosing a first step in digitalisation, it is worth considering which recurring demands on the business owner’s time it could reduce. Adding an explanation to an invoice at the right time can prevent later searching, trying to recall the details and another round of emails. If a lack of time is the main barrier to change, this kind of recurring admin is a sensible place to start.