How Spreadex Ditched the Manual Invoice Nightmare (and Why They Haven't Looked Back)

A UK hospitality group that started using PaperLess in 2021, outgrew its accounting platform in 2026 — and valued the software enough to bring it across to Xero rather than leave it behind.

With PaperLess and Sage 50, Credentia's finance team now handles twice the invoice volume with half the manual effort — and nobody had to go anywhere to make it happen.

Back in 2019, Spreadex was drowning in paperwork. Their finance team had a problem you've probably experienced: invoice volumes climbing steadily, headcount staying exactly where it was and approval processes that dragged on for what felt like forever.

Cirencester Friendly Society is a Gloucestershire-based mutual insurer providing income protection and other financial products to members across the UK. As a regulated financial services organisation, audit compliance, financial governance and transparent approval processes are not optional — they are fundamental to how the business operates. For a finance team running on Sage 50, finding an invoice processing and approval solution that could meet those standards without introducing friction or compromising integration was a serious challenge.

The Ethical Trading Initiative — ETI — runs on a lean team that handles everything from grant accounting to member billing to supplier audit trails, all while staying accountable to a board, external auditors and government funders. Kate Solomeyina, their Senior Finance Manager, isn’t processing 10 invoices a week. It’s more than that, with more moving parts and a finance function that genuinely can’t afford to have things fall through the cracks.

Industry: Mechanical Services

Mission Mars is an award-winning hospitality group based in the UK. In order to cope with the rapid growth and expansion of the group into new business areas, the group had the urgent need to update its accounts payable function and make its financial procedures more efficient. This was essential for the accounts payable team to effectively manage the rising volume of invoices resulting from the company’s rapid growth

The RAF Museum was facing increasing pressure from a growing volume of supplier invoices that required processing. The Museum's old methods were making it difficult to keep up with the volume of invoices, making invoice processing slow and cumbersome.