143 steps reduced to 16

One of our big customers uses a web-based program to order from us. The system notifies us of the order, accepts our inputs about packaging and shipping information, and notifies the customer when the order has gone out the door. It also prints the shipping labels we use on the boxes. When we were trained by the previous office manager to use the software it was on an order for 704 ice cream makers. There are 8 to a box so we were sending out 88 boxes. She showed us how we needed to enter the same information 88 times into the system. What a pain in the butt! "There must be a better way!" we insisted. She said no.

Today I handled the paperwork for the next big order from the same customer. She was wrong. I read the manual and called the helpline and figured out how to do the above task in a single entry. For today's order I entered 16 transactions where she would have entered 143. Victory! Unfortunately, while the software was user-friendly in this way, it was stupid in another way. It kept resetting itself to a bad setting so that the printed labels came out half-blank (or half-printed, if you're an optimist). I needed 36 sheets of labels. I got them, but I tossed about 45 in the garbage along the way.