At five to ten minutes per supplier invoice, manual entry doesn't look expensive — until you multiply it. 150 invoices a month is 12+ hours of skilled staff time spent retyping numbers that already exist on a PDF. And every keystroke is a chance for a transposed digit that throws your stock values and supplier reconciliation out. Here's the honest comparison.
| Feature | Data Entry Pro | Alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Time per invoice | ~15 sec review + hands-free entry | 5–10 minutes of typing |
| Monthly time at 150 invoices | About 1 hour of reviews | 12–25 hours |
| Cost at $35/hr staff time | From A$79/month flat | A$420–875/month in wages |
| Typos & transposed digits | No — extracted digitally from the PDF | Inevitable at volume |
| PDF attached to every bill | Yes — automatic | Depends who's typing |
| Back orders created | Yes — automatic on part-deliveries | Frequently forgotten |
| Evenings & weekends | Works anytime — queue a batch and walk away | Someone stays back to catch up |
Count your monthly supplier invoices (your MechanicDesk bill history will tell you).
Multiply by 6 minutes — that's your current monthly data-entry cost in staff hours.
Start the free trial, drop in 10 real invoices, and time the difference yourself.
Data Entry Pro's AI extracts line items with 99%+ accuracy, and you review the extracted data before anything is entered into MechanicDesk. Humans typing at speed make more errors, and those errors are silent — a wrong digit just sits in your books.
At A$35/hour staff cost, the Starter plan (A$79/month) pays for itself at roughly 23 invoices a month. Most workshops process far more than that.
We recommend a quick review of the extracted data before processing — it takes seconds. The automation also has built-in safety checks that abort rather than enter questionable data into MechanicDesk.
That's the point. Data entry is the lowest-value work in the workshop. The same person can chase parts, book jobs, follow up customers, or reconcile accounts — things software can't do.
7-day free trial. 10 invoices on us. No credit card required.