Case study:
How Stonewater Saved 40 Hours a Month by Digitising Records
A social housing provider in England moved housing benefit schedules into a structured capture workflow to remove repetitive keying and keep uploads consistent.
Product:
Scanning & Capture
Industry:
Social Housing
Region:
United Kingdom
Requirement:
Extract line-item data + deliver CSV for upload
Volume Delivered:
554 schedules processed in 5 months
Inbound Source:
Schedules received monthly
Read Time: 6 minutes
No manual entry required
Fewer errors and rework
Stronger audit trail and control
CASE STUDIES:
What Stonewater Team Says About Kefron
Stonewater’s experience shows what social housing providers gain when schedule processing becomes consistent – despite changing Local Authority layouts.
THE CHALLENGE:
Processing Housing Benefit Schedules Without Manual Entry
At Stonewater, housing benefit schedules arrive constantly, and they don’t arrive in one “nice” format. Even with some digital files available, a large share still came in as PDFs or paper, which forced the team into repetitive keying to keep their housing management system up to date.
Here’s what they faced:
- Time sink every month: Staff were spending hours typing hundreds of schedule lines instead of focusing on higher-value finance work.
- Accuracy + control risk: Manual keying increased errors and delays, creating corrections later, and weakening confidence in financial control.
- Variation across sources: Different Local Authorities used different layouts, so each new format introduced friction and made PDF data extraction harder to run consistently.
They needed an immediate solution to keep schedule processing accurate and fast – by digitising records rather than continuing to scale manual input.
THE SOLUTION:
A Capture Workflow Built for High-Variation Schedules
Kefron implemented a structured workflow to support digitising records from housing benefit schedules, even as Local Authority layouts changed over time:
- Housing benefit schedules are received and handled through Kefron’s secure intake process.
- Documents are processed through document scanning and capture, so paper and PDF formats follow the same path.
- Stonewater uploads schedules to Kefron’s secure FTP server for automated processing.
- Line-level data is extracted and returned as a CSV output file ready for import.
- The CSV file is uploaded into Stonewater’s housing management system to complete processing without manual re-keying.
- As layouts shift, Kefron supports template updates so the workflow stays reliable over time.
- A dedicated account manager supports ongoing queries and format changes, keeping processing stable as schedule sources evolve.
With this approach, Stonewater could process schedules consistently even as formats changed, while removing the manual workload that used to slow the team down.
THE RESULTS:
Faster Processing, Better Accuracy, Stronger Financial Control
By digitising records for day-to-day operations, Stonewater achieved what high-volume housing teams need most: consistent processing, reliable data, and clearer financial control, without tying up staff in repetitive entry work.
- 554 schedules processed in the first 5 months, demonstrating the workflow could handle real operational volume.
- 40 hours per month saved, by removing manual keying from schedule processing.
- Manual entry eliminated, so teams no longer had to retype hundreds of line items per schedule.
- Fewer errors and corrections, reducing follow-up work caused by incorrect system entries.
- A stronger audit trail, supporting internal policies, procedures, and compliance requirements.
- More time for value-adding work, allowing finance teams to refocus away from administration.
- Up-to-date, accurate schedule data, so teams can rely on the figures they’re processing.
Why Digitising Records Matters for Social Housing
Stonewater’s story shows what changes when housing benefit schedules stop being typed in manually and start flowing in as structured data. It matters if you need to
Keep schedule processing moving every month.
Handle mixed PDF and paper formats consistently.
Replace manual keying with a standard approach.
Maintain audit trails and financial control.
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See How Digitising Records Would Work for Your Team
Turn incoming schedules and paper-heavy finance documents into structured data you can upload without manual typing, so your team saves time, improves accuracy, and keeps a clear audit trail.
