How The Exam Pros automated Florida DBPR licensing applications and saved at least four months of manual labor
The Exam Pros helps contractors pass Florida's licensing exams and complete the state's licensing process, with exam prep, study materials and application assistance across trades such as general and building contracting, air conditioning, plumbing and roofing. Its applications team prepares Construction Industry Licensing Board (CILB) packages for the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR). With Instafill.ai filling those applications from each Cognito Forms submission, six forms no longer get retyped, and the team projects a saving of at least four months of manual labor.
At a glance
- Company The Exam Pros
- Industry Contractor exam prep and licensing applications
- Serves Contractors licensing in Florida
- Forms Florida DBPR CILB licensing applications
- Integration Cognito Forms, by webhook
-
Results
6 Florida CILB application forms automated
4+ months of manual labor saved, projected
15–20 more forms planned, with no added staff - Catalog forms DBPR CILB 6-A, Certified General Contractor Qualifying a Business, DBPR CILB 6-B, Certified Building Contractor Qualifying a Business, DBPR CILB 6-G, Certified Class A Air Conditioning Contractor, DBPR CILB 30, Certification of Registered Contractor (Grandfathering)
- Form categories CILB forms, DBPR forms, Florida contractor forms
The challenge
The team works with about 20 different DBPR licensing applications for contractor and business licenses, in specialties such as general contracting, air conditioning, plumbing and pool construction. Each one spans multiple pages and hundreds of fields, repeating sections included, and has to meet the state's strict requirements.
Sales representatives collected each client's information through a CRM platform. The applications team then typed it, field by field, into the official DBPR PDFs, which were flat, with no fillable fields at all. Many of the forms ask for the same information, so the same details went in again and again, and every retyped field risked an error that could get an application rejected in state review and cost a resubmission.
Nearly 20 forms were the first priority, out of a potential inventory of about 500 unique form types. As it stood, handling more of them meant hiring more people.
The solution
The work came in two phases. First, Instafill.ai's team turned the flat DBPR forms into fillable PDFs with flat-to-fillable conversion. That conversion is done once per form.
Second, Cognito Forms, which The Exam Pros already used to collect client data, was connected through a webhook that starts a fill on every submission. When a client submits their information, Cognito Forms sends it to Instafill.ai as structured JSON, and Instafill.ai maps it into the matching CILB application, filling hundreds of fields within seconds.
The completed form then arrives by email for the applications team to verify, and after that final review the team submits it to the DBPR. Refining the setup and working from structured Cognito Forms input brought the filled forms to a reliable standard of accuracy, with human review as the last check for state compliance.
The results
| Before | With Instafill.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Data entry | Retyped field by field from sales submissions | Filled by webhook from each submission |
| DBPR PDFs | Flat, typed by hand | Converted once, then filled |
| The team's work | Typing, corrections, review and submission | Review and submission |
| Forms automated | None | 6, with 15–20 more planned |
| Adding a form | More typing for every client | A one-time conversion |
"I calculated it's gonna be like at least four months of manual labor they're going to save up, if not more."
— Marco Quintero, The Exam Pros
The Exam Pros plans to automate the remaining Florida CILB forms across its contractor specialties. Each one is a single conversion, not another hire, so the team can serve more clients while keeping its application assistance personal.
