What does outsourcing actually solve?
When you outsource document processing to an administrative firm, you remove the data-entry burden internally. That has its advantages: you no longer deal with absenteeism on the data-entry role, you do not need to scale capacity yourself during peak periods, and implementation time is virtually zero. For organisations with low or fluctuating volumes, or with document types that vary significantly by sender, outsourcing is a legitimate choice. You pay per hour or per document, and stop when the flow dries up. The problem is that the manual work does not disappear: someone else does it, and you still pay for it. Every additional order, invoice, or CMR that comes in adds to the bill. As your volume grows, so do your costs.
When does automating document processing pay off?
Automation makes sense when three things are true: volume is sufficient, document types are recognisably repetitive (orders, purchase invoices, CMR waybills, packing slips), and the receiving process is well-defined. Consider a transport company processing dozens of CMRs daily into a TMS, or a wholesaler routing purchase orders from regular suppliers into an ERP. For flows like these, automation pays for itself: the cost per document decreases as volume rises, while outsourcing costs scale in parallel. Cabooter Group processes over 70,000 documents per year with dottle, 85% of them fully automatically, resulting in approximately 110,000 euros in annual savings. That is not an exception; it is the result of high, repetitive volume running through a well-defined process.
What are the honest drawbacks of automation?
Automation requires an initial setup. Not months, but not zero either. Document types need to be configured, the connection to your ERP, TMS, or accounting system needs to be established, and staff need to learn to work with an approval flow rather than an inbox full of PDFs. dottle goes live in two weeks, but those two weeks require time on your end: access to sample documents, a decision on which fields you want extracted, and clarity on who reviews exceptions. At very low volumes, say twenty documents per month, the fixed cost per document is high and outsourcing is often cheaper. The same applies when your document flows are structurally inconsistent: if every supplier sends a different format with varying field names and no consistent structure, setup costs more and automation delivers less.
Automate or outsource: how do you decide?
A rule of thumb: below fifty repetitive documents per month, outsourcing is usually the smarter choice. Above one hundred per month, automation starts to prove itself, especially when document types are recognisable (invoices, orders, CMRs, packing lists) and need to land in a system. Between those numbers lies a grey zone that depends on your specific situation: what does an hour of manual entry cost internally, what does outsourcing charge per document, and how quickly do you want to reduce dependence on external capacity? An additional factor is control. With outsourcing, data leaves your organisation before anyone internally has approved it. With automation, the approval step stays within your own system: a team member reviews exceptions, flags them, and gives sign-off. The manual work is gone; the decision is not.
When is outsourcing the better choice?
Be honest about your situation. Outsourcing fits better when your document flow is seasonal and you have almost no volume outside peak periods. It also fits when document variation is so high that automation brings configuration costs that cannot be recovered. And it fits when your internal processes are not yet defined: if it is unclear who does what after an invoice is received, automation will not fix that. You have a process question first, and an automation question second. Automation is not a substitute for process design. dottle works best when the flow from A to B is clear and the only missing piece is the automatic reading and routing.