Paperless Progress: How Dext aided Flotek’s rapid expansion
About Flotek
Flotek’s story began in July of 2022, as an IT and comms service provider that is trusted to help businesses operate through cloud technology.
Flotek is a full-service company, giving the businesses it serves the ability to migrate to the cloud with confidence, knowing that their network is fully secure and set up for cross-collaboration. They even have a print division to help companies manage their paper documents.
While the company is still young, it’s already seen rapid growth. Flotek currently boasts over £15 million in revenue, and has expanded to serve seven offices around the United Kingdom with over 100 staff.
Jay Ball, CEO of the Flotek group, notes that this rapid expansion over the past three years is “way ahead of where we thought we’d be in our original ten-year plan.”
The Challenge
A company that’s this ‘switched on’ to technology naturally needed a partner that was going to help them in every area of their operations – including their finances.
Finance Director, Dave Middleton, admitted, “I don’t like paper.” So, naturally, he went to Google to search for a software provider that could eliminate this waste for him and his team. He tried other providers, but wasn’t happy with the results until he found Dext.
He was immediately impressed that Dext’s 99% accurate data extraction features could save his team wasted time that had previously been spent processing invoices.
His team then began using Dext primarily as a purchase ledger tool, but have since explored all that the bookkeeping automation has to offer over the course of the last three years.
The Solution
Dext inspired widespread adoption across the company almost immediately because, as Dave notes, “People bought into it very quickly because they realised what it could do for them.”
One of the most heavily used features that Flotek was able to take advantage of was Dext’s intuitive line item extraction. Because the company had grown so quickly through acquisition, Dave and his team found that they had a significant volume of supplier invoices coming through.
“I found it pretty intuitive to use,” Dave insisted, but the main time-saving property that the platform gave Flotek was its ability to extract the sheer volume of data they were operating with on a day-to-day basis. His team also greatly benefited from the addition of the Supplier Statements feature. “It’s really, really helpful being able to see at a glance that you’ve captured everything.”
“We have a couple people who use it for expenses, which it’s very helpful for.” Dave added that he found it easy to quickly upload expense additions to the app while he was sitting on his sofa at home.
The Impact
The impact that Dext had on Dave’s team and Flotek’s operations as a whole was immediate. Flotek had employed one Purchase Ledger Clerk who worked 20 hours a week, but her workload was only dedicated to one of the Flotek group’s companies a week.
Once Dext was brought on board, her time spent on the same tasks had reduced to only 13 hours per week from a previous 20-hour work week because she was able to get through all of her work through better utilisation of time. This freed her up to then work with other companies within Flotek’s network.
Dave’s team’s entire focus for the day was then shaped by Dext. They would use it “every day as a bit of a to-do list.” So that when they went into their main dashboard, they could see that there were 43 items that needed completing, for example. From there, the Purchase Ledger Clerk could set her priorities all from one place, rather than needing to collaborate via email.
Moving Forward
Given its huge successes and early wins, it’s no surprise that Dave believes Flotek is “a fast-growing business.”
“Integration is really important, so we needed a system that means that we can scale everything we do.” Dext turned out to be that system, and three years on, Dave and his team can testify to the results.
In terms of other companies that may be considering implementing Dext, Dave poses the question, “What was the thing you spent most of the time doing last month?” Tackling that volume of admin that you do with Dext’s help, just makes your business all the more scalable.
If you want to find out more about how Dext could support your business to scale, start your free 14-day trial today.
