How we found 2,800 PLN in savings in a small workshop
The rules are simple: if you pay for something twice, you are simply losing money by choice. In a small agricultural machinery service near Wrocław, we found an error that cost the owner as much as a monthly payment for a new tow truck. We look for gaps in everything, and this time we found one in a folder full of invoices.
Messy paperwork is not just about aesthetics
We entered Mr. Andrzej's office on Tuesday at 9:15 AM. There were 43 invoices on the desk, half of which hadn't even been opened. Andrzej has been running his workshop for 8 years and employs 7 mechanics, but administration has always been his last priority. He claimed he didn't have time to check small amounts because only the work on the shop floor mattered. This is a classic mistake in small companies where the owner is everything: the boss, the logistician, and sometimes the mechanic. Through this approach, money leaks from the account unnoticed, in small portions that, when summed up, create a significant hole in the budget.
We started by reviewing bank statements from the last 4 months. We were interested in standing orders and card payments for subscriptions. Mr. Andrzej was convinced he was paying about 340 PLN per month for software. Reality proved different after just 14 minutes of analysis. We found 6 different charges for tech companies, three of which had nearly identical names. It turned out that the workshop was paying for an old invoicing system, a new order management system, and an additional warehouse module that had been part of the second program for 19 months. No one turned it off because no one read the transfer descriptions.
A mess in invoices is the easiest way to hand over profit to suppliers who are just waiting for your oversight.
Three subscriptions for the same thing
Facts on the table: the company was paying for 'Invoice-Master' (95 PLN net), 'Workshop-Pro' (210 PLN net), and 'Warehouse-Cloud' (85 PLN net). After logging into each of them, we saw that customer data was being copied manually from one to another. Worse still, 'Workshop-Pro' had already included invoicing and warehouse functions in its base price since an update in March 2023. Andrzej was therefore paying 180 PLN per month for features he already had in his main system. This was just the tip of the iceberg, as there were more of these 'junk' payments.
Another find was a forgotten subscription for a GPS monitoring system for two vans that the company hadn't owned since December 2022. The operator was charging 144 PLN every month, even though the SIM cards in those transmitters were inactive. When we asked Andrzej why this was still coming out of the account, he shrugged and said he thought the contract expired on its own. Such thinking cost him over 3,000 PLN over two years. At Reformacja Biznesu Sp. z o.o., we don't believe in magic; we believe in numbers, and they were merciless to the owner's wallet.
How to read invoices to avoid being overcharged
Most service providers – from telecommunications to software – count on the customer not noticing an extra 15 or 30 PLN for 'additional services'. In Mr. Andrzej's workshop, the internet invoice showed a 'secure office package' for 49 PLN. No one used it, no one ordered it consciously, but the item appeared after a contract extension over the phone in June 2023. The salesperson mentioned it briefly, and Andrzej confirmed because he wanted to get the conversation over with. Over 11 months, he gave away over 500 PLN for a product he never even installed.
The rules are simple: every item on an invoice must be reflected in the workshop's operations. If you don't know what an abbreviation means, call the supplier and ask. We did it for Andrzej. We made 4 calls to customer service departments. In two cases, we managed not only to disable unnecessary options but also to negotiate a refund for the last 3 months because the services had not been activated. No fluff – it was an hour of work with a phone in hand that brought an immediate financial effect. You don't have to be an accountant to see that 2,800 PLN in monthly savings is real profit that stays in your pocket.
Implementing simple control rules
To prevent the situation from recurring, we introduced one simple mechanism in the workshop. Once a quarter, exactly on the second Monday of the month, Ms. Halina from the office is required to reconcile all invoices with the bank statement and mark every fixed charge in red. If the amount changes or a new supplier appears, Andrzej must sign off on it. This takes about 20 minutes but gives 99.4% certainty that no company has hooked onto the budget without the boss's knowledge. Net profit counts, not being nice to corporations sending invoices.
In July 2024, three months after our intervention, Andrzej used the saved money to buy a new set of diagnostic tools that previously 'had no funds'. This is the essence of our work at Reformacja Biznesu Sp. z o.o. – we don't look for revolutions, we look for money that is already in the company, just lying under a pile of unnecessary papers. If your business generates turnover but the account is empty at the end of the month, start by reviewing your subscriptions. I guarantee you'll find at least 300-400 PLN that can be recovered immediately without firing people or raising service prices.
Saving in a company starts with order in the binder and ends with a higher margin.
