A translation agency that re-typed the same job into three systems before work could start

A traditional agency runs several different lines of work at once: certified document translation, ongoing localization, and rush jobs on deadline. Each line has its own software, and a single client file can touch all three. Source material arrives through every channel a client prefers, by email, as a PDF, as a spreadsheet, sometimes as paper handed across a desk. Before anyone could begin, a coordinator classified and checked it by hand, then re-keyed the same job details into the central project system and into the line-specific tools. The re-typing between systems, not the translating, was eating the team.

On top of that, every coordinator chased their own clients for the missing pieces, a reference glossary, a signed source, the last invoice, by phone and email, kept in their own heads. During peak deadlines the team was bombarded by hundreds of calls and follow-ups, and it was hard to focus on the actual work. The firm had tried fixed, off-the-shelf products before and found them costly for the benefit: they covered most of the workflow but never the last twenty to thirty percent, the part that was specific to how this agency actually worked. They did not want to rip out the central system they had already invested in. They wanted the gaps around it closed.

We did not replace the central system. We built around it. A single structured intake captures a new job once, at the right place, so the same details stop being re-typed into three tools. Files arriving by email, PDF, or spreadsheet are pulled into one place and attached to the right client and job automatically, so a coordinator validates rather than re-keys.

A shared follow-up board replaced the private mental lists: every job shows what is still missing before it can move, who owns it, and how long it has been waiting, so the chasing is visible instead of living in one person's inbox. And because the central system held a great deal of data it never reported well, we surfaced it: a dashboard that lets a manager drill from the whole book of work down to a single late job. The connectors are built so the central system stays the system of record and the new layer fills the gaps around it.

The re-keying between systems is gone. A job is entered once and flows to where it needs to be, which gave each project manager back roughly twelve hours a week, most of it during the exact peak weeks when the team had the least to spare. The same coordinators carry more work without adding people.

Follow-up stopped being a private burden. Anyone can see which client is holding up which job, so missing references get chased before a deadline turns into a fire drill, not after. And the firm finally reads its own numbers: the data that used to be locked in the central system is now in one view a manager can drill into, so decisions are made on what the work actually shows rather than on a feeling.