It's Friday evening, 7:42 PM. You are still at your computer, manually copying rows from a bank statement into your accounting software. Invoices are scattered across your inbox — some printed, some unpaid. Receipts are crumpled in your wallet. At this moment, you make a promise to yourself: "Next week, I'll find a better way."
This article is that "better way". Not an abstract "implement artificial intelligence", but concrete steps and tools available in Latvia today that genuinely cut the hours you spend on bookkeeping. At Balansis, we have implemented these solutions for dozens of clients — from freelancers to companies with 20 employees. Here is what works.
Where the Most Time Gets Lost — And How to Get It Back
According to Latvian automation experts, in a typical small or medium-sized enterprise, 60–70% of accounting time is spent on routine tasks: data entry, document processing, bank statement reconciliation, and generating standard reports. Companies that have introduced automation report a 40–60% time saving on routine tasks, 90% fewer data entry errors, and a three-times-faster month-end close.
Here are five areas where automation delivers the highest return, ordered by implementation simplicity — start with the first, and you will save several hours in your very first month.
1. Connecting Your Bank Account to Your Accounting Software
This is the very first and most important step. Instead of manually downloading your bank statement from internet banking every morning or every week, saving it as a CSV file, and importing it into your accounting program, you set up a one-time automatic sync. After that, every payment flows straight into your accounting system — without you touching a thing.
What You Need
Most Latvian accounting programs already support direct bank integration. Horizon Cloud, Jumis, and Pats.lv all offer automatic bank statement imports from Swedbank, SEB, Citadele, and Luminor. Pats.lv syncs your account fully automatically — all income and expenses appear in the system without any manual action.
If you use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, there are specialised solutions — for example, OIXIO Baltic Bank Connect, which provides a direct integration with Swedbank and SEB. SEB also offers its own Baltic Gateway API, which lets you connect your bank account directly to your accounting software, receive statements in real time, and even initiate payments from the program.
What You Save
Manually downloading a bank statement, importing it, and reconciling transactions against invoices takes an average of 4–8 hours per month for a small business. Automating this gives you those hours back — and virtually eliminates the errors that come from copying numbers by hand.
2. Invoice Scanning with OCR — The End of the Receipt Era
The second biggest time leak is processing incoming invoices and receipts. A paper invoice arrives by post, a receipt stays in your wallet after filling up with fuel, a supplier sends a PDF by email. And then someone has to gather all of that, sort it, and enter it into the accounting system.
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology in 2026 has reached a level where it can read even blurry receipts and extract all the key data — amount, date, VAT, supplier name — without manual entry.
Tools Available in Latvia
Maventa AutoScan — available in Latvia since October 2025, with full PEPPOL, email invoicing, and print service support. Latvian companies can register using the LV:VAT identifier format.
Dext (formerly Receipt Bank) — one of the most popular document digitisation tools among accountants. Automatically extracts data from invoices and receipts; integrates with Horizon, Jumis, and other Latvian programs.
Booksmate — a 2026 newcomer that uses artificial intelligence to automatically fetch invoices from emails, supplier portals, and other sources. Extracts data with 99% accuracy and syncs it with your accounting software.
Pats.lv — built-in receipt scanning functionality that lets you photograph a receipt with your phone and automatically add it to your expense journal.
How It Works in Practice
You receive an invoice from a supplier — paper, PDF, or email.
You photograph it with your phone (if paper) or forward it to your OCR tool (if digital).
The OCR system reads: supplier name and details, invoice amount, VAT rate and amount, date, invoice number.
The processed data automatically flows into your accounting software — in the right accounts, with the correct VAT breakdown.
You just review and approve. The entire process takes 30 seconds, not 5 minutes.
3. Automatic Recurring Invoices and Payment Reminders
How much time do you spend each month reissuing the same invoices to the same clients? Rent, subscription services, monthly consulting retainers — these are all ideal candidates for automation.
What You Can Automate
Recurring invoices. Set them up once, and the software will issue and send the invoice to the client automatically each month. Horizon Cloud, Jumis, and Pats.lv all offer this functionality.
Payment reminders. When a client is late paying an invoice, the system automatically sends a polite reminder after 3 days, a formal reminder after 7 days, and a final warning after 14 days. You no longer have to track each late payer individually.
Supplier invoice approval chains. Specialised tools like ApprovalMax let you set up automatic approval workflows: invoice from supplier → automatically lands with the responsible employee for approval → once approved, it is automatically posted and prepared for payment.
What You Save
One recurring invoice that has to be issued manually — 3 minutes. Twenty such invoices a month — one hour. Automate it, and that hour disappears. Plus — you never forget to issue an invoice again, because the software does it for you.
4. Payroll Automation
Payroll in Latvia is complex — differentiated non-taxable minimum, social contribution caps, holiday reserves, sick pay, cumulative working hours. Doing it manually, mistakes are almost inevitable.
Solutions
All the major Latvian accounting programs — Horizon Cloud, Jumis, Pats.lv — offer built-in payroll modules that automatically:
Calculate social contributions (both the employee's and the employer's share)
Apply the non-taxable minimum (€550 per month in 2026)
Calculate PIT at two rates (25.5% and 33%), taking cumulative income into account
Generate the Employer Report and prepare it for EDS submission
Calculate holiday reserves and sick pay
Pats.lv's SIA plan (€25/month) includes payroll for up to 3 employees.
International tools like Deel offer full payroll automation, including tax document preparation, but these solutions are more expensive and better suited to companies with international teams.
5. Invoice Processing via Specialised Platforms
If your company receives more than 20–30 invoices a month from suppliers, it is worth considering a dedicated incoming invoice processing platform. One of the leading providers in Latvia is FitekIN, which integrates with your accounting system and automatically processes incoming invoices: reads data, matches them against orders and contracts, routes them for approval, and finally creates the journal entry.
FitekIN's advantage is that it is built specifically for the Latvian and Baltic market — it understands local VAT rules, EDS requirements, and can process invoices in Latvian.
What to Automate Now and What to Leave to a Human
Not everything can be automated — and not everything should be. Here is our recommendation on where to invest first and what to leave to the accountant for now.
Automate immediately (high return, low cost):
Bank statement imports — integration is already built into most programs
Recurring invoices — set up once
Payment reminders — automatic emails on a schedule
Standard VAT return preparation — if your software has EDS integration
Automate as volume grows (medium return, medium cost):
OCR invoice scanning — when incoming documents exceed 20–30 per month
Payroll — when your employee count hits 3–5
Incoming invoice approval chains — when your company has multiple decision-makers
Leave to a human (lower automation return):
Tax planning and optimisation — requires strategic thinking
Financial analysis and advisory — requires context and experience
Booking complex transactions — non-standard situations where AI does not yet help
Audit support — requires human communication with the auditor
Realistic Time Savings — How Many Hours a Month You'll Get Back
Based on our client experience and industry research, here is a realistic estimate of how much time you can save by introducing automation:
Business size | Manual hours per month | Savings with automation | Remaining hours |
|---|---|---|---|
Self-employed (up to 10 transactions) | 8–12 hours | 4–6 hours (50%) | 4–6 hours |
Micro SIA (10–30 transactions, 1–2 employees) | 15–25 hours | 10–15 hours (60%) | 5–10 hours |
Small SIA (30–100 transactions, 3–10 employees) | 30–60 hours | 15–25 hours (40–50%) | 15–35 hours |
The upfront investment in automation typically pays for itself within 3–8 months, after which the net saving is €200–500 per month, depending on company size.
In financial terms, this means: if your hourly rate or your accountant's hourly rate is €20, saving 15 hours a month gives you back €300 — fully covering the cost of average automation tools (€50–200 per month).
Accounting automation is not a project with an end date — it is a process in which you progressively free up time from routine. Start with bank integration this week. Next month, add OCR invoice scanning. Then recurring invoices. Each step frees up a few more hours that you can spend on growing your business rather than copying numbers. Our team helps with both choosing the right tools and implementing them — so your Friday evenings no longer disappear into Excel spreadsheets.
Last updated: June 2026. Information is based on software developers' official materials, the automatizacijas.lv study, and Balansis client experience.
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