A volunteer fire company files grant applications with a minute to spare
Celia Marsh runs the entire back office of a volunteer fire company with a budget of about $500,000. Grants, contracts, bank documents, bylaws, and the material she uses to train her replacement all go through one desk. She came from sales and learned operations on the way.
- 1 session2 files combined, compressed, and uploaded before it closed
- 2 → 1paid licenses, the partly used one canceled
The challenge
The hardest part of the job is not the writing. It is the system. It limits how many files you can upload, caps how large they can be, and ends your session while you are still fixing something. On one application, all 3 happened at once.
Before, a small change meant going back to the original file, editing it, exporting a new PDF, and coming back to a session that may have ended in the meantime.
- The system sets the rules. Upload limits, size caps, and a session that ends while you are still working.
- One person, every document. Grants, contracts, bank documents, and bylaws all go through the same desk.
- Every dollar has to be justified. A fire company this size can’t carry a license it only partly uses.
Especially when we’re down to the wire on a grant, sometimes we’ve been like literally hitting submit one minute before.
The solution
The document work happens in the browser, next to the open application. A file that is too large, or one file too many, gets fixed where it is, instead of sending you back to the source document to start the export again.
- Combine what the system won’t take. When the upload count is capped, 2 documents become 1.
- Compress to fit. Bring a file under the size limit.
- Fix the last thing. Change a line or add a signature without rebuilding the PDF.
- Go back and submit. Return to the application with the session still open.
The results
The 2 files went up combined and compressed, inside the same session. A last-minute fix now takes about a minute, made in the browser next to the application.
Edit the source, export again- Look up how to merge or compress
- Risk the session timing out
Edit next to the application- Combine and compress in seconds
- Submit before the session ends
