You sell hours, but nobody invoices the hours you lose to your own admin.
For accountants, consultants and estate agents, time is the product. Yet a sizeable part of the week disappears into work nobody pays for: reconstructing hours afterwards, requesting documents from clients who don’t respond, answering the same question by email for the fifth time. The professional work itself can’t be automated and you shouldn’t want it to be. The edges around it can, and there is more there than most firms think.
An accountancy, consultancy or estate agency firm with a handful to several dozen professionals, invoicing by the hour or per file.
Sound familiar?
- Hours are reconstructed on Friday from the diary and memory. What can no longer be traced doesn’t get recorded.
- Requesting documents from clients is a series of reminder emails someone sends by hand.
- The same standard questions come in every week, and the answer is somewhere in an old email.
- An intake consists of an hour-long conversation and then an afternoon writing it up into a report.
- The firm’s knowledge lives in folders, mailboxes and in the head of the senior who is about to retire.
- With a new client everything starts from scratch: identification, building the file, data that is partly already somewhere.
- Work in progress and billability are only known after month-end close, when you can no longer do anything about it.
What usually runs here
That does not have to go. We build in between and around it.
Where the gains are
Proposing hours instead of reconstructing them
From diary, email and file activity comes a proposal for that day’s time recording, per client and per file. The professional approves and corrects.
fewer hours you forget to record and no Friday-afternoon reconstructionDocument requests that chase themselves
Each file has a set list of what needs to come in. Clients automatically receive an overview and reminders, and whatever comes in is recognised and filed in its place.
files are complete sooner and nobody has to chase documents by phoneReport and summary from a conversation
An intake or advisory meeting produces a draft report with the points discussed and the agreements made, ready to review and sharpen.
writing up takes a fraction of the time and nothing stays stuck in someone’s headInternal knowledge assistant on your own know-how
An assistant that knows your own manuals, files and previous advice answers staff questions with the source attached.
juniors search further themselves and seniors are interrupted lessWork in progress in view during the month
Booked hours, invoiced amounts and the budgets per file are recalculated daily, with a signal when a file is going off the rails.
you adjust during the work instead of afterwardsThe honest bit
- An AI summary of a conversation or a file is a draft, not advice. The professional remains responsible and reviews it. Anyone who skips that will sooner or later get into trouble.
- Client data and files are sensitive. We set out up front what happens to which data and where it’s stored. Some applications we deliberately don’t do, or only within your own environment.
- Many firms want a chatbot for clients first. The return usually lies internally first: hours, documents and building files. That’s less visible and delivers more.
- Disciplinary law, professional rules and the requirements of your professional body determine what is allowed. We adapt the solution to that rather than the other way round.
How we start
The core session lasts one half-day of four hours and costs €596 excluding VAT and travel costs. With a few people from the firm we go through where the week goes, and separate professional work from administrative hassle. Usually the hours proposal or document requests come out first, because they work within weeks and change nothing about the professional work itself. Anything involving sensitive data we agree on in that same session.
Specific to your profession
A bookkeeping or accountancy firm with five to fifty staff, handling dozens to hundreds of client files per period.
A law firm or legal services provider with a handful to several dozen fee earners, invoicing by the hour or at fixed prices per case.
An estate agency with two to twenty staff, active in sales, buying agency or lettings, with dozens of properties on its books.
Further reading
From our insights
Most businesses start with the tool and then get stuck. It is better to start with one piece of work that comes back every week and nobody enjoys.
The build costs are usually the easiest part of the bill. The surprises are in the clean-up beforehand, the monthly usage and the maintenance afterwards.