In this blog article, I’ll walk you through the key areas where automation streamlines finance operations for builder’s merchants, showing you exactly where those time savings happen and how they can redefine your finance team’s work.
Picture this...
It’s 5PM on month-end day, and your finance team is still buried in spreadsheets, frantically matching invoices to delivery notes while everyone else has gone home. Sound familiar? After years of working with finance teams in the building materials supplier sector, I’ve seen this play out countless times.The real problem emerges when consolidating information from multiple systems into your accounting package - duplicating effort through journals, imports, and endless manual reconciliations. For growing builder’s merchants, this process quickly becomes unsustainable.
Building materials supplier software stops you from doing the same job twice. When you receive stock or pay a supplier, the software automatically updates your accounts, stock records, and reports. No more double-entry, no more chasing missing information.
Customers I’ve worked with have described this level of automation as "transformative,” freeing their teams to focus on strategic analysis rather than tedious admin work.
The five key areas of automation:
1. Accounts payable automation
The traditional accounts payable process in building materials supply is notoriously paper-heavy and time-consuming. I've worked with customers whose offices were stacked with boxes of paperwork with delivery notes that had to be manually attached to every supplier invoice for compliance purposes. One customer I remember was drowning in documentation, spending countless hours matching invoices to delivery notes, not to mention struggling with storage space.
Automating accounts payable makes the whole process - from receiving an invoice to getting it approved - much easier. With our optional inDocs module, invoices can be scanned, uploaded, or emailed straight into the system. inDocs reads the document and sends it into Intact iQ, where it’s checked against the delivery note. If anything doesn’t match, it’s flagged for review. If everything looks good, the invoice can be approved automatically. You can also view the original document in iQ when entering the invoice.
2. Bank Automation for Reconciliation and Automatic Transactions
Finance teams find bank reconciliation to be one of the most time-consuming tasks because it requires manual matching of bank statements to accounting system transactions - a process that is also prone to human error.
Builder's merchant software automation makes this easier through rule-based systems that handle most reconciliation without human intervention. Business rules automatically generate entries for recurring payments like direct debits when statements are imported.
I've worked with teams who were spending 4-6 hours daily on reconciliation, often reducing this to 30-60 minutes reviewing exceptions. This represents a monthly saving of 60-80 hours per team member.
This time can be redirected toward strategic financial analysis and decision-making that directly contributes to business growth.
3. Profit and loss automation (prepayments)
Recurring tasks like prepayments often involve annual costs - such as electricity, council tax, or insurance - that need to be spread across the year. Many businesses still handle this manually using spreadsheets and monthly journals, which creates repetitive work that adds little value but must be done correctly to keep the P&L accurate.
This manual process takes up valuable time and increases the risk of mistakes that can affect your financial reporting. With builder’s merchant software like GenetiQ, these costs can be apportioned automatically when the invoice is entered, saving time and reducing errors.
On the customer side, new functionality also allows you to take a transaction or customer balance and spread it over an agreed period, such as a payment plan—giving you more flexibility and control over income scheduling.
That's where industry-specific builders' merchant software really earns its keep. The right system can take care of these adjustments automatically. You shouldn’t need to be entering the same journal every month - automation can handle that for you, cutting down on manual input and reducing the risk of errors.
When you enter the invoice, you just define how the cost should be split, and the system automatically spreads it across the correct months.
Additionally, software that supports future-dated postings provides the flexibility to work without being tied to rigid month-end processes, allowing you to keep moving without closing things off prematurely.
Finance teams love these streamlined processes because they remove ongoing admin burdens, freeing up time for more strategic financial analysis and decision-making. The flexibility of future-dated postings means you're working with a system that adapts to your workflow rather than forcing you into rigid processes.
4. Asset register automation (depreciation management)
Manual depreciation relies on complex spreadsheets filled with formulas, prone to breakage or user error.
Say you have a few hundred assets - all of that has to go through a complicated spreadsheet and it takes a lot of time at month-end. The risk of mistakes increases as assets grow in volume, especially when calculations aren’t automated or centralised.
Below are two infographics showing the challenges of manual depreciation tracking and the benefits of using supplier software with automated asset management. (slide across to view)
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Conclusion
After working with so many finance teams over the years, one thing is clear: automation is a game changer.
When you remove the manual work, you give people time back to do the work that really matters. Instead of racing against the clock when month-end hits, teams can focus on analysing performance, planning ahead, and helping other departments make better financial decisions.
If your team is still weighed down by spreadsheets, manual journals, or disconnected systems, it’s worth exploring how automation could work for you. The benefits - time saved, errors reduced, and value unlocked - far outweigh the initial effort.
Author: Sam Smith
Meet sam Smith Sam Smith, Senior ERP Finance Consultant.With over twenty years of experience in accounting and leading large finance teams, Sam transitioned to the software industry and discovered her true professional passion. Sam's accounting expertise enables her to work closely with clients, ensuring their systems are optimally configured to meet their unique financial needs and business objectives.