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.
When COVID pushed the whole team remote and that became permanent, the cracks showed up fast. This is what happened when they switched to PaperLess for Sage 50.
The short version
Customer: Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI)
Sector: Non-profit / International NGO, London UK
Software: PaperLess for Sage 50
Modules in use: Invoice Approval Workflows, AI-OCR Invoice Recognition, Sales Invoice Processing, External Audit Access
- 50–60% less time spent on invoice processing end-to-end
- 70% drop in manual data entry
- 10–15 hours back every week for the finance team
- Approvals that used to drag on for days now done the same day
- Audit prep went from a scramble to a login
- Full HMRC audit trail built in, accessible straight from Sage 50
Before: the invoice process nobody talks about
Here’s what invoice processing looks like at a lot of UK NGOs, and ETI was no different. An invoice lands — emailed PDF, scanned document, something posted in from a supplier. Someone downloads it, opens Sage 50, and starts typing. Supplier name, reference number, date, net amount, VAT, nominal code. Then they forward the PDF to whoever needs to approve it. That person might reply the same day. Might take three days. Might reply with a question that starts a whole separate thread. By the time the approval comes back, someone has to find the original invoice again.
In the office that’s manageable — barely. Once ETI’s team went permanently remote, it stopped working. There was no shared view of what was outstanding. No way to know if an invoice was stuck with an approver or just hadn’t been picked up yet. Suppliers were chasing payment on things that were technically approved but hadn’t been posted. And every time auditors came around, the finance team spent days pulling documentation together that should have been findable in minutes.
“Our organisation was facing significant challenges with manual, paper-based invoice and approval processes, particularly following the post-COVID shift to remote working. As remote working became a permanent part of our operating model, it was clear that paper-based and email-driven approvals were no longer sustainable.”
Kate Solomeyina, Senior Finance Manager, Ethical Trading Initiative
That last word — sustainable — is the right one. Nothing was technically broken. People were coping. But coping isn’t the same as functioning and for a finance team with governance obligations, ‘good enough’ carries real risk.
Why PaperLess, specifically
A lot of AP Automation solution sync with Sage 50 via a middleware layer — a scheduled export, a connector that runs every hour, something that means the data in your AP tool is always slightly behind what’s actually in Sage. That creates reconciliation headaches. It also means your team is working with two systems that don’t quite agree with each other.
PaperLess reads live from Sage 50. Account codes, supplier records, tax codes — whatever’s in Sage is what the team sees when they’re coding an invoice. When approval goes through, it posts directly. No export, no import no manual checking that things lined up correctly. Kate also flagged implementation time as a factor — they didn’t want a project. They wanted software that worked.
“What truly differentiated PaperLess was its strong automation capabilities, seamless integration with our existing systems and a highly responsive support team. The solution is clearly designed to support real-world finance workflows without unnecessary complexity.”
Kate Solomeyina, Senior Finance Manager, Ethical Trading Initiative
What the day-to-day looks like now
Invoice capture
Invoices come in however they come in — email, scan, PDF — and PaperLess AI-OCR reads them. Supplier name, invoice number, date, amounts, VAT. Pulled out automatically and matched against the supplier record in Sage 50. The team checks and confirms rather than types from scratch. Over time the recognition gets better as the system learns each supplier’s invoice format. ETI’s manual data entry is down roughly 70% from where it was.
Approvals
This is the one that changed the day-to-day most noticeably. PaperLess Invoice Approval routes each invoice automatically based on rules ETI configured — who approves what, at what value, for which cost centres. The approver gets a notification. They log in — phone, laptop, whatever — see the invoice and the data, and either approve it or flag a query. If they query it, the query goes to the right person inside the platform. No forwarded email threads. No lost context. No chasing.
Invoices that were sitting for three or four days now typically clear the same day. The finance team can see at any moment exactly where every invoice is and who’s got it.
Sales invoices
Less dramatic but worth mentioning. ETI uses PaperLess for outgoing invoices too — the sales invoice functionality gives visibility over what billing is required and makes sure the right sign-off is in place before anything goes out. Fewer errors, more consistency.
Audit
External auditors at ETI now get read-only access directly into PaperLess. They can look up any invoice, see the full approval history, read any queries that were raised, check the timestamps. The invoice image sits against the Sage 50 transaction line. If HMRC comes asking, or if an external auditor needs to trace a specific payment, it’s a lookup.
Kate mentioned this specifically when we asked what had changed most. Audit prep — the days of pulling files and answering questions — is basically gone. The trail is already there.
Concrete differences
Data entry
Before: Every invoice keyed manually into Sage 50. One mistake per ten invoices isn’t unusual when people are typing all day.
Now: OCR reads it. The team reviews rather than transcribes. Errors down sharply, time down 70%.
Approval turnaround
Before: Average approval cycle somewhere between one and four days, depending on who was online and whether emails got missed.
Now: Most invoices approved same day. The system nudges approvers if something’s been sitting. No manual chasing needed.
Visibility
Before: The only way to know what was outstanding was to check your inbox and a spreadsheet, and hope both were up to date.
Now: One view, live. Every invoice, every status, every action logged in real time.
Audit readiness
Before: Audit season meant days of prep. Finding documents, compiling files, making things presentable.
Now: Auditors have their own login. They find what they need. The team does something else.
Remote working
Before: The process assumed an office. It didn’t translate.
Now: Runs entirely digitally. Doesn’t matter where anyone is.
PaperLess Invoice Processing in Numbers
Since implementing PaperLess for Sage 50, ETI has seen:
- Invoice processing time down 50–60%
- Manual data entry reduced by up to 70%
- 10–15 hours a week freed up across the finance function
- Approvals consistently completing within hours rather than days
- Fewer invoice errors and discrepancies reaching Sage 50
- Audit preparation time eliminated almost entirely
PaperLess has delivered a strong competitive advantage by enabling the finance team to focus on higher-value activities rather than administrative tasks. The increased speed, accuracy and transparency have strengthened internal controls and improved relationships with suppliers and auditors.
From the team
“PaperLess has transformed our invoice processing — the process is faster, clearer, and significantly less stressful.”
ETI Finance Team
“The level of automation and visibility we now have was exactly what our finance function needed.”
ETI Finance Team
The recommendation
We asked Kate directly: what would you say to another finance team looking at PaperLess?
“If you are looking for a practical, secure, and reliable solution that delivers tangible efficiency gains without unnecessary complexity, PaperLess is an excellent choice.”
Kate Solomeyina, Senior Finance Manager, Ethical Trading Initiative
For non-profits and NGOs in particular — organisations juggling audit obligations, lean teams and systems that can’t afford to break — the direct Sage 50 connection and the built-in HMRC audit trail are worth the price of admission on their own. Everything else is a bonus.
Want to see it running on your Sage 50? Book a free 30-minute demo — most teams are live the same day.
Common questions
How does PaperLess actually connect to Sage 50?
Directly — no middleware. It reads account codes, tax codes and supplier data live from Sage 50, so what the team sees when coding an invoice is always current. Approved invoices post straight in. Invoice images attach to the transaction line and can be retrieved from within Sage.
How long does setup take?
About two hours for most teams. Because it’s a direct integration rather than a mapping exercise, there’s not much to configure. Most people are processing invoices automatically on the day they install it.
Does it work for teams that work remotely?
Yes — that was ETI’s main reason for switching. Approvers can action invoices from any device. The whole process runs online. Nothing depends on anyone being in a specific location.
