A medical transport company faced a common problem: monthly invoicing was a time-consuming, error-prone manual process. Each billing cycle required a coordinator to copy transport run data from Airtable into individual Word invoice templates for 20-30 facilities. This transcription took hours, often led to mistakes, and sometimes resulted in billing disputes.
The problem
The client provides non-emergency medical transport services. Their operational data, including completed transport runs, lived in Airtable. When it was time to bill, a team member would open Airtable, find all completed runs for a specific facility, and manually retype each trip’s details-date, patient reference, destination, miles, and charges-into a Microsoft Word invoice. After totaling the charges, they would then export the document as a PDF. This manual process consumed significant staff time and was vulnerable to human error. A single mistyped number could lead to incorrect billing, facility disputes, and delayed payments.
What we built
Brothers Automation built an Airtable invoice automation tool to streamline this entire billing cycle. The custom system reads completed transport runs directly from the client’s Airtable base. It then groups these runs by their origin facility, ensuring that each facility receives a single, consolidated invoice for all its trips within the billing period.
A key requirement was to match the client’s existing Word invoice layout exactly. We achieved this by templating their actual .docx file, preserving all fonts, table borders, headers, and logos. The system then generates each invoice as both a Word document and a PDF. Finally, it writes the billing status back to Airtable, marking each billed transport run as “Invoiced” to prevent accidental double-billing. The system runs on the client’s own machine, ensuring sensitive patient data never leaves their premises and maintaining HIPAA compliance.
How it runs
The automation connects to Airtable via its API, pulls the relevant completed transport runs, and processes them. It first performs a “dry run,” generating all invoices for preview. This “human in the loop” step allows the client to review the generated Word and PDF invoices before any changes are committed to Airtable. Once approved, a second command pushes the data, creates new Invoice records in Airtable, and updates the status of the individual transport runs to “Invoiced.”
The tool is cross-platform, working on both Windows and macOS. It leverages Microsoft Word on the client’s machine to generate pixel-perfect PDFs. If Word is not installed, it can automatically fall back to LibreOffice for PDF generation, or simply produce Word documents. This flexibility ensures the client remains in full control of their documents and data. For more on how we approach systems like this, see our page on custom development.
This system transformed the client’s monthly billing. The client achieved about $1,200 of billing and collection work reclaimed each year. They saw roughly $43,000 saved annually between reduced labor and faster invoice processing. Billing questions, disputes, and support tickets decreased by around 30% because every invoice was clean and itemized. Invoices now typically get paid in about 10 days instead of 30. What was once a manual week of work each month became a single command completed in under a minute. Brothers Automation builds systems like this to run on your own infrastructure, so you own the solution and pay no ongoing license fees.