Client
EDF Tax is a Polish accounting firm with a growing client base and a high-volume document processing operation. The team is lean, so operational efficiency directly impacts both service quality and the firm's ability to grow.
Highlights
- • Automated email-to-document routing with intelligent folder mapping
- • Self-service sender authorization via Google Sheets
- • Running continuously since March 2025
The Challenge: A Gap in the Document Flow
Two Systems That Should Talk, But Don't
When EDF Tax migrated to a new document management portal, the firm expected smoother operations. The portal was clean, structured, and efficient, with invoices organized by company and ready for processing.
The migration, however, created an unexpected gap: a significant share of clients kept sending invoices by email instead.
Every email attachment meant manual work: download it, navigate to the correct client folder, upload it. With dozens of emails daily, staff spent significant time shuffling documents instead of doing accounting work.
What this looked like in practice:
- • Attachments scattered across email threads
- • Manual downloading and uploading for each document
- • Wrong folders and missed attachments creating processing delays
- • Staff time consumed by repetitive logistics instead of client service
The Solution: An Automated Bridge
Instead of fighting client habits, we built a system that adapts to them. Clients email invoices the way they always have, and the automation handles the rest: it monitors the inbox, extracts attachments from authorized senders, renames them according to EDF's conventions, and routes them to the correct folders in the document management system.
Staff find documents already organized in the right place.
Understand the Workflow
We mapped the existing email-to-folder process and documented the sender authorization rules, naming conventions, and folder structure.
Build the Integration
A Gmail API integration monitors the inbox. Sender authorization is based on Google Sheets, so the team can edit it without a developer. Extraction, renaming, and folder routing into the document management system are automated.
Pilot and Handoff
A pilot with a subset of clients, refinement of edge cases, documentation, and handoff to the EDF team.
Key Design Decisions
Self-service sender management
Authorization is managed through a Google Sheet, a tool the team already uses daily. Adding a new sender takes seconds and needs no developer involvement.
Fits into existing infrastructure
The automation connects Gmail to the existing document system. Nothing was replaced, only bridged.
Responsive support
When edge cases surfaced, they were diagnosed and resolved within hours. Over nearly a year of operation, the system required roughly 5 hours of total maintenance.
The Results
Workflow Transformation
Before
Manual download and upload for every email attachment. Staff time spent daily on document shuffling.
After
Invoices arrive in the correct folders automatically. Staff find documents ready for processing.
Operational Impact
The automation fully replaced manual email processing, and invoices are available automatically on the same day. The system has been running continuously since March 2025, with approximately 5 hours of total maintenance in that time.
The Real Value
The time savings are measurable, but the deeper impact is the end of a daily source of workflow friction: staff no longer start their day sorting through inbox attachments. The gap in the document flow that had been disrupting operations ceased to exist.
What Made the Difference
Understanding the Actual Workflow
We mapped exactly how documents flowed through EDF's systems: the naming conventions, the folder logic, the authorization rules. The automation fit seamlessly into the existing processes because we understood them first.
Adapting to How Clients Actually Behave
Rather than asking clients to change how they work, we built a system that accepts their preferred method and handles the rest. There was no retraining and no change management, just a bridge.
Focused Scope, Fast Delivery
EDF had one specific bottleneck that caused daily friction. We scoped the solution tightly around that problem and delivered in weeks: targeted work with a tangible result.
Client Perspective
After onboarding the automation, EDF's team stopped thinking about the email-to-document gap entirely: it just wasn't a problem anymore.
"A year in, maybe 5 hours of maintenance total. It just works."
The automation was a targeted fix that solved an acute pain and demonstrated what becomes possible when someone takes the time to understand how your business actually works.
