Data Entry and Back Office Teams
Data entry is the easiest work to outsource and the easiest to outsource badly. iFOVS runs it as a managed function with documented quality checks — not as piecework thrown at whoever is available.
What your iFOVS data team does
- Enters records into your CRM, ERP or database against a documented standard
- Digitises invoices, forms, contracts and handwritten documents
- Cleans and de-duplicates existing databases
- Migrates data between systems with a reconciliation check at the end
- Researches and enriches contact and company records
- Processes orders, applications and claims through your workflow
- Formats and standardises product data for catalogues and marketplaces
- Extracts data from PDFs and scans into structured spreadsheets
- Runs a defined quality check on completed batches before anything is handed back
- Reports volume, throughput and error rate weekly
Systems they work in
Excel and Google Sheets · Airtable · Salesforce · HubSpot · Zoho · SAP · NetSuite · QuickBooks · Xero · Adobe Acrobat
Who this works for
- Businesses migrating systems who need clean data in the new one
- Professional services firms processing high volumes of forms and applications
- E-commerce and wholesale standardising product data across channels
- Any company whose database has decayed to the point where nobody trusts it
How we handle accuracy
Volume without accuracy is worse than no help at all, because you end up checking everything yourself. So:
- Every batch is entered against a written standard agreed with you at the start, not assumed
- A defined percentage of every batch is independently checked before it comes back to you
- Errors are logged, categorised and reviewed for patterns — a repeating error is a process fault, and gets fixed at the process level
- Error rate is reported weekly whether you ask or not
We charge for hours, not per record. Per-record pricing pays people to go fast and it shows up in your data six weeks later.
What it costs
Data entry and back office specialists are hired on a straight hourly rate — our most affordable role, and often where a first engagement starts. Part-time or full-time.
How to choose a data entry specialist
Speed is the metric everyone quotes and the one that matters least. What you are actually buying is accuracy and the willingness to stop.
Measure accuracy with a seeded test
Give a paid sample containing a known number of deliberate errors and count how many they catch. This tells you more than any claimed accuracy percentage.
Test what they do with an ambiguous record
The expensive failure mode is confident guessing at scale. You want someone who stops at record twelve rather than propagating a wrong assumption through five hundred.
Check spreadsheet fluency, not typing speed
Lookups, text functions and basic cleaning turn a week of entry into an afternoon. Many self-described data entry staff cannot do any of it.
Ask what they noticed
The best people in this role surface problems in your source data that nobody asked them to look for. Ask for an example.
The one question to ask in the interview
You’re entering 500 records and 12 have a field that doesn’t match the format. What do you do?
What a good answer sounds like: Flag the twelve, ask once, continue with the rest. Stopping entirely wastes a day; guessing quietly wastes a month.
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is the work?
Rather than quote a headline percentage, here is how the work is actually checked, because the checking method is what produces the number. Every new assistant works under full review until their output is consistently clean, then moves to sampled QA. Batches are validated against source documents, and anything that fails validation is corrected and logged as a defect against the assistant rather than quietly fixed. We report that defect rate to you each month, measured on your own work. If accuracy is contractually critical for you, tell us the standard you need and we will agree how it is measured before we start — a figure both sides have defined is worth more than a percentage on a website.
Can you handle sensitive records?
Every team member signs an NDA before access. Work is performed on controlled workstations in our office with access logging. See our data privacy standards, and send us your vendor security questionnaire if you have one.
Can you scale up for a one-off project?
Yes. Migrations and clean-up projects are common — we scope the volume, agree the standard and staff to the deadline.
What if the person is not a fit?
Replaced at no cost if the fit is wrong early on.
Worth reading before you hire
- How to write a brief someone can actually follow
- Outsourcing without losing control of your data
- What this role costs, and what moves the price
Related roles
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