Monday morning, twelve logins
Your admin assistant starts the week by working through supplier portals. Log in, find the broker section, filter by date, download the new bills, rename them, save them in the right client folder. Then the next supplier. One portal has changed its layout. One has logged her out mid-download. One requires a code sent to a colleague's phone.
By lunchtime, the bills are downloaded and filed. The commission statements and contract documents are still to do, and the same routine will be needed next week.
Why portals take so much time
Every supplier builds its broker portal differently, and the portals are designed for looking at one thing at a time, not for collecting everything that is new.
- Each portal has its own login, security steps and layout.
- Documents are found by searching, not by a list of what is new.
- File names do not match your naming or folders.
- Some documents are also emailed, some only in the portal.
- Layouts change without notice, breaking any routine staff have learned.
Time lost and documents missed
Hours spent in portals are hours not spent on the work that uses the documents. When time is short, downloads are skipped, and bills or statements sit unchecked in a portal until someone needs them.
Misfiled documents cause their own trouble: a bill saved in the wrong client folder, a statement saved twice, a contract document nobody knows has arrived.
There is a people risk too. Portal routines tend to live with one or two members of staff who know each supplier's quirks: which menu hides the commission statements, which portal needs the reports run for the previous month, which one times out. When they are on holiday, the downloads stop, and nobody notices until a bill or statement is needed.
Collection that uses every route suppliers allow
We build document collection around what each supplier actually offers.
- For each supplier, we record the routes available: API, data file feed, email delivery or portal only.
- Where a supplier provides an API or a data feed for brokers, documents and data are collected automatically on a schedule.
- Where documents arrive by email, they are picked up from the inbox, identified and filed against the right client and meter.
- For portal-only suppliers, we do not automate logins where the supplier's terms do not allow it. Instead, the system produces a short checklist for a person: which portal, which clients, what is expected, and a place to drop the downloads for automatic filing.
- Every document is named and filed consistently, and logged so the team knows what has arrived.
- Documents feed straight into the next step: bills to validation, statements to commission matching, contracts to the register.
| Supplier route | What happens |
|---|---|
| API or data feed | Collected automatically and filed |
| Email delivery | Read from the inbox and filed |
| Portal only | Checklist for a person, drop-folder for automatic filing |
| Any route | Named, logged and passed to the next step |
What can be automated depends on what each supplier provides and permits. Where a supplier only offers a portal, we make the manual step as short as possible rather than working around their terms.
A week without the portal marathon
On Monday, most new bills and statements have already arrived through feeds and email and are filed. The admin assistant has a short checklist for the few portal-only suppliers, with what to expect from each. Downloads go into a drop folder and are filed and passed on automatically.
The team knows each week which documents have arrived and which are still expected, rather than discovering gaps when they need something.
Are supplier portals eating your week?
- Staff log in to many portals every week.
- Downloads are renamed and filed by hand.
- Documents are missed or saved twice.
- Portal layout changes break your routine.
- Bills and statements sit unread in portals.