Automating 1,100+ monthly supplier payments: Hours of reclaimed time and a powerful safety net against misdirected funds

Freightline is a logistics and freight forwarding company offering urgent road and air shipments, customs clearance, and warehousing across Europe. Their team manages time-critical deliveries with a focus on reliability and flexibility, supporting clients with 24/7 expertise and a strong European network.

Freightline's operations are complex, but its team is lean. Karl Hill, Accounts Manager, oversees all business transactions. He shares how moving away from manual bank transfers to Telleroo transformed how the company handles bulk supplier payments and reconciliations.

The nightmare of manual bulk payments

Before adopting Telleroo, the company's accounts payable process was entirely manual, incredibly time-consuming, and vulnerable to human error. Handling the sheer volume of monthly transactions was becoming an impossible task.

"We'd pay around 1,100 monthly invoices," Karl explains. "I had 350 suppliers, so I'd have to total up invoices per supplier 350 times, putting different amounts manually on a batch file. I spent so much time inputting bank details, inputting account numbers, checking the payments and double-checking the invoices."

Beyond the heavy administrative burden, Karl realised that the entire financial operation rested solely on his shoulders. If he was unavailable, the business simply could not pay its suppliers.

"I looked at the process and recognised there was a weakness within the company, and the weakness was me. Because I was the only one who knew how to do it." Karl recalls. "There would be errors, as there's only so much humans can do. I needed something to check my work. It was basically getting to the point where I couldn't physically cope anymore with making those manual payments. It was a nightmare."

Finding a seamless integration with Xero

Freighline’s outsourced accountants knew the business needed a robust software solution to adapt to the growing volume of invoices, so they recommended Telleroo. "I haven't looked back since."

The deciding factor was how perfectly Telleroo synchronised with their existing accounting software, Xero.

"I see my job as an inputting role. As long as I say ‘let’s pay John Doe £1000’, everything else should be automated. That's what I like about Telleroo."

Instead of typing in hundreds of payments, Karl now delegates the heavy lifting to Telleroo. He simply sets a planned date on the invoices when they’re added to Xero, and that flows through to Telleroo, where all he has to do is select the invoices he wants to include in the pay run.

Once the payment is made, Telleroo pushes the data directly back into Xero, marking the invoices as paid and making the once-dreaded reconciliation process practically effortless.

"Telleroo automatically synchronises to Xero, and I'll just press Okay to reconcile all payments my end, happy days! It's made it very easy to reconcile bulk invoices, that's the positive."

Built-in security checks for supplier bank details

By automating Freighline’s payment workflow, Telleroo has delivered two massive benefits to the freight forwarding business: hours of reclaimed time and a powerful safety net against misdirected funds.

Due to Telleroo's built-in payment security features, Karl no longer has to worry about accidentally sending funds to an outdated account.

"Telleroo will say 'match', 'no match', or 'updated'. We had a big supplier change their bank details, and Telleroo alerted me to it. So I then checked with my colleagues. It's very good."

Telleroo also flags missing bank details. Karl can simply scan the attached Xero invoices directly from within Telleroo to add the supplier bank details, which are then automatically synced back to Xero.

"You scan the document in Telleroo and tick a box to say the bank details match the invoice. Telleroo then saves the bank details; it's a crucial secondary check for us."

An invaluable tool for high-volume businesses

For Karl, Telleroo has eliminated the stress of manual data entry and provided confidence in their payment security. When asked what he would say to other businesses considering Telleroo, his advice is clear:

"I'm making a large number of payments, and there have been times when they have a high monetary value. If you're doing the same, definitely use Telleroo." Karl concludes. "Telleroo is so easy to use, it's self-explanatory. When you sync with Xero, everything is automatic. That process has been invaluable."

Sign up to Telleroo today to send supplier payments quickly, easily and securely! 🚀