How Linda Farrow Cut Invoice Processing Time in Half with PaperLess for Sage 200

A London-based luxury eyewear brand that eliminated manual invoice handling, removed email approval chains, and reduced complex invoice processing from up to 10 minutes per invoice to under 2.

Insights provided by Jessica Tran, Accounts Payable Specialist, Linda Farrow

At a Glance

Introduction

Bally Sunglass and Optical Company Limited, trading as Linda Farrow, is a London-based luxury eyewear brand with a global presence. More about the brand can be found at www.lindafarrow.com. Behind the brand’s creative reputation sits a finance team with the same operational requirements as any business of its size: supplier invoices to process, costs to allocate, approvals to manage, and a need to keep the whole process moving without it consuming more time than necessary.

For Jessica Tran, Accounts Payable Specialist at Linda Farrow, that last point was the problem. Invoice processing was being managed manually inside Sage 200, and it was absorbing a significant amount of administrative time each day. The team was re-keying invoice data by hand, chasing approvals over email, and managing a process that had no real visibility once an invoice left the AP function.

This case study covers what Jessica identified as the friction in the existing process, why PaperLess for Sage 200 was the right fit for an SME like Linda Farrow, and the specific, measurable improvements the team has seen since AI-OCR, invoice approval workflows, and invoice templates became part of the daily workflow.

The Challenge: Manual Processing That Was Costing the AP Team an Hour a Day

Jessica was specific about what the problem looked like before PaperLess. The accounts payable process at Linda Farrow was entirely manual inside Sage 200. Every invoice that arrived required someone to read it, key the data in by hand, allocate the correct nominal codes and cost centres, and then manage the approval process by email. For a team whose time is better spent on higher-value work, that daily overhead added up quickly.

The approval process was a particular source of friction. With no dedicated workflow tool, approvals ran through email chains that were difficult to track. There was no central view of which invoices were outstanding, who had seen them, or what stage they were at. Approvers had no easy way to see the cost breakdown or how invoices were being coded without digging through email threads.

Three things were creating the most operational drag:

• Manual re-keying of invoice data into Sage 200, including narrative descriptions and nominal codes, for every invoice processed
• Email-based approval chains with no visibility of status, no audit trail, and no easy way for approvers to understand cost allocation at a glance
• Complex invoices, particularly those requiring line-by-line splits across multiple cost centres, taking up to 10 minutes each to process manually

Jessica’s goal was practical: reduce the manual effort involved in day-to-day invoice processing, give approvers a better experience, and bring some structure and visibility to a process that had none.

Why PaperLess? The Right Fit for an SME Already Running Sage 200

Linda Farrow didn’t need the most powerful AP automation platform on the market. They needed one that would actually work: quickly, cleanly, and without months of configuration before anyone could use it. Jessica had seen what overly complex implementations look like, and that wasn’t the direction she wanted to go.

PaperLess cleared that bar from the first conversation. The Sage 200 integration meant there was no disconnect between the automation layer and the accounting records, what gets processed in PaperLess flows directly through to Sage 200, with the supporting documentation staying attached throughout. No duplicate entry, no reconciliation headaches.

PaperLess matched those requirements. Jessica found the platform user-friendly from the outset, with a setup process she describes as straightforward. The integration with Sage 200 was a core requirement, and PaperLess delivered it without requiring Linda Farrow to change how the accounting records were structured.

Three things made PaperLess stand out from the alternatives Jessica considered:

• Sage 200 integration, which kept invoice data and supporting documentation connected to the accounting system throughout — no exports, no manual bridging, no disconnected records
• Real-time processing visibility across every invoice in the workflow, something the email-based process could never give Jessica regardless of how carefully she managed her inbox
• AI-OCR scanning that was, in Jessica’s words, clear and easy to use — not just technically capable but practically accessible for a team that needed to be up and running quickly

PaperLess is also listed on the Sage Marketplace, which gave Jessica confidence that the integration with Sage 200 was properly certified and supported — not a workaround.

How the Linda Farrow AP Team Uses PaperLess

Three features sit at the centre of how Jessica and the team use PaperLess day to day, with each one addressing a specific part of the process that previously required manual effort.

AI-OCR Invoice Processing

Invoices are captured and read automatically using PaperLess’s AI-OCR engine, with the relevant data fields pulled out and queued for review. No manual re-keying. For Jessica, the shift is felt almost immediately. What used to be a data entry task is now a checking task, and checking is a lot faster than typing.

Invoice Approval Workflow

Email chains for invoice approvals are gone. That’s not a small thing, for a team that was previously managing sign-offs through email threads with no central visibility, it changes the whole texture of the working day. Invoices go into the PaperLess approval workflow and get routed to the right person automatically. The approver opens the portal, sees the invoice, the cost breakdown, how it’ll be coded: everything in one view, nothing buried in a thread.

Jessica calls this the feature the team values most, and it’s not hard to see why. Previously, an approver who wanted to understand what they were signing off on had to go digging through emails to find the original invoice. Now it’s right there. Costs visible in real time, coding clear, previous approvals a click away. The decision gets made faster and with more context than it ever could over email.

Invoice Templates

Templates don’t get mentioned as often as OCR or approval workflows, but for Linda Farrow they’ve turned out to be just as important. The idea is straightforward: for invoices that follow a consistent structure, the system learns it. Once the AI-OCR has scanned the document, the template fills in what it already knows, line items, codes, cost centres,— and Jessica’s job becomes checking rather than entering. It sounds like a small shift. The time saving on complex invoices suggests otherwise, as the example below shows.

In Practice: A Complex Invoice That Used to Take 10 Minutes Now Takes Under 2

One of Linda Farrow’s IT suppliers sends invoices that need splitting across five separate lines, each one with its own narrative description and nominal code or cost centre. Before PaperLess, that meant Jessica reading the invoice, entering each line by hand, getting the codes right, checking the total, and then sending it off for approval. Five to ten minutes, every time.  Now? The AI-OCR reads the invoice. The template fills in the lines. Jessica checks the amount against what’s been auto-populated and sends it to the budget approver. Under two minutes, start to finish.  That’s a saving of up to eight minutes on a single invoice from a single supplier. Multiply that across a year, and the numbers become very difficult to ignore.

The Results: Half the Processing Time and an Approval Process That Actually Works

The numbers Jessica provides are some of the most precise in any PaperLess case study to date, and they tell a clear story about where the time was going before and where it goes now.

Daily Processing Time Cut by Approximately 50%

Before PaperLess, Jessica was spending approximately one hour per day on invoice processing. Since implementing PaperLess, the team processes invoices twice a week, averaging around 30 minutes per session. The daily time cost of AP processing has been reduced by roughly half, not through working faster, but through removing the manual steps that were consuming the time in the first place.

That is time Jessica and the team can redirect to other work. The AP function has not shrunk; it has become more efficient, and the people in it have more capacity to focus on work that requires their judgement rather than their patience.

Complex Invoice Handling: From 5-10 Minutes to Under 2

The IT supplier example is the most tangible illustration of what PaperLess has changed at Linda Farrow. A process that took between 5 and 10 minutes per invoice, involving manual line-by-line entry across five cost centres, now takes under two minutes from OCR scan to approval submission. Templates do the heavy lifting; Jessica does the checking.

This kind of improvement is not exceptional. It is what happens when a process that was designed around manual effort gets rebuilt around automation. The work does not disappear, it just stops requiring a human to do each step of it.

Email Approval Chains Eliminated

The approval workflow has removed email from the sign-off process entirely. Approvers work within the PaperLess portal, where the invoice, cost breakdown, and coding all sit in one place. Jessica no longer chases approvals or manages email threads to find out where something is sitting. Status is visible in real time, and the approval history is stored automatically against each invoice.

Greater Clarity on Spend for Approvers

One outcome Jessica flags that goes beyond pure efficiency is the improvement in how approvers engage with invoices. When an approver receives an invoice through the PaperLess portal, they can see exactly what the cost is, how it is allocated, and what has been approved before. That visibility changes the quality of the approval decision. It is not just faster, it is better informed.

“Very easy to use. I was able to view the cost in real time without going through email to find the invoice. I was able to see who has approved the invoice along with any specific notes regarding the invoice, which is quite convenient as they are all stored electronically in the PaperLess system.”

Linda Farrow approver feedback, shared by Jessica Tran

Would Jessica Recommend PaperLess?

Without hesitation. Jessica’s recommendation to other businesses considering PaperLess is direct: the platform can make invoice processing faster and improve team productivity, and it has the flexibility to be configured around the specific needs of the business rather than asking the team to adapt to a fixed process.

The setup, in Jessica’s experience, is straightforward, an important consideration for an SME that does not have the resource or appetite for a drawn-out implementation. PaperLess fits around the existing Sage 200 environment. The features are accessible from day one, and the improvement is visible quickly.

For any accounts payable team still spending an hour a day on manual invoice entry and chasing approvals by email, Linda Farrow’s experience offers a clear and specific reference point. The time is recoverable. The process is improvable. And the numbers are there to prove it.

See What PaperLess Could Do for Your AP Team

PaperLess integrates with Sage 200, Sage 50, Sage Intacct, Xero, SAP Business One, and Orderwise. Book a demo or get in touch at paperlesseurope.com/contact-us.