We go through how your practice really runs: the records you chase every quarter, the same client queries answered again, the deadlines tracked in three places. Then we tell you which of it is worth handing to AI, and in what order.
Most practices know AI could take some of this off them. What they are missing is someone who will look at their own workflow and say which part to hand over first, rather than sell them another module.
You know who they are before you look. The same names every quarter, the same bank statements missing, the same silence until the week before the deadline, and the same panic at your end when everything arrives at once.
Your ledger software has AI now. So does the practice management system, the receipt tool and the outsourcer's pitch deck. Every one of them has a product to sell you, so none of them will tell you the cheapest fix is usually a process nobody has written down.
A general chatbot writes confident tax-shaped sentences that are out of date, or wrong for the client's circumstances, or both. Fluent and wrong is worse than nothing when your name is on the advice.
None of that is a technology problem. It is a question of which job goes first, and that is the bit we do.
These come up in nearly every practice audit we run. Which of them lands in your plan, and in what order, depends on your client mix, your compliance-to-advisory split, and the software you already work in.
The same clients chased every quarter by hand, and everything arrives in the last week regardless.
Tracks what each client still owes you, asks for exactly that, escalates on your own timings, and tells you early which jobs are going to be late.
The conversation with the client who is always late. That is a relationship problem, not a reminder problem.
Engagement letter, identity checks, authorisations and software access, assembled by hand for every new client.
Runs the sequence, collects the identity documents, chases the authorisations, and opens the client once the file is complete.
The risk assessment and the decision to take the client on. Always a person.
Deadlines tracked in practice management, a spreadsheet and somebody's memory, which mostly agree.
Watches every filing date across the book, works backwards to when the records are needed, and raises the job before it is urgent rather than after.
Deciding what happens when a client is going to miss one.
The same twenty questions answered from scratch: mileage, dividends, what counts as an expense, when the payment is due.
Drafts the answer from your own past correspondence and your own position on it, ready for someone to send.
Anything that is advice. If the answer depends on circumstances, it goes to a person.
Building the query list by hand, then chasing answers one email at a time.
Assembles the query list from the ledger, sends it in the client's language rather than in accountancy, and chases what comes back.
The judgement on any treatment that is not obvious.
The same pack rebuilt every month, with the commentary written last and quickly.
Assembles the pack, drafts first-pass commentary against the numbers, and flags what has moved enough to be worth mentioning.
The commentary that matters. You rewrite the insight; the machine does the assembly.
Working papers assembled by hand, and the review finds the same things missing every year.
Runs your own checklist as the job progresses and flags gaps while the client is still engaged rather than at review.
The review and the sign-off. The accounts are your responsibility and nothing changes that.
Enquiries arrive by phone, email and web form, and the ones you answer slowly are the ones you lose.
Collects what the enquiry actually is, produces a quote on your own scale, and books the call.
Anything unusual, and every fee that is not standard.
Chasing your own invoices, badly, because it is nobody's actual job.
Runs your escalation sequence on your own timings and logs every contact so the position is clear.
Deciding when to stop working for someone who is not paying.
You spot the opportunities when you happen to look, which is usually at year end and usually too late to act on.
Works the client base against your own rules and flags the ones worth a conversation this month.
The advice, and whether the conversation is right for that client at all.
Nobody starts with ten. A plan usually puts two live in the first month and leaves the rest ranked and waiting, so when you have the appetite for the next one you already know which it is.
Most of the job is joining up the software you already pay for rather than moving you off it. These are the ones we come across most in practice, and we have no affiliation with any of them.
Three steps. You do the talking on the first one, and nothing is committed until you have seen what we found.
No prep, no agenda to fill in. We ask the questions and you walk us through how your week actually runs: the jobs, the tools, the emails you send a dozen times a month.
Recorded and written up, so you never repeat yourself.
We work back through the call and map where your time actually goes. Then we find the automations that suit your tools, your team and your budget, ordered so the biggest time saving comes first.
Back with you within a week.
We walk you through the whole report, recommendation by recommendation, and you decide what to take on first. Most people have their first automation running within a week of that call.
The report is yours to keep either way.
The plan tells you what to build. The dashboard shows you what it is doing once it is built, so you can see what you are getting back without asking us.
Set up when the plan is delivered, at app.fewerhours.com under your business name. No shared login and nothing to install.
Every one we build reports the hours it saved and the work it handled, so the value is a number you can check rather than a promise we made.
The rest of the ranked list sits there waiting. When you have the appetite for the next one, you already know which it is.
This works best where a partner can still see the whole client list. There are a few cases where it would waste your time, and those are worth saying out loud.
Fewer Hours exists because too many owners knew AI could help them somewhere and had no way of telling a good idea from a sales pitch. The plan is the boring part done properly: sitting with the real workflow and working out which jobs are worth handing over.
Whoever takes your call is the person who writes your plan. No account manager, no junior doing the analysis, and nobody trying to move you onto a retainer at the end of it.
Three steps, and you can stop after any of them. The first one is a conversation, and nothing about it commits you to the next.
A short chat about how your business runs. If there’s nothing here worth mapping, we’ll say so on the call.
The full job. We map the workflows, score every candidate, and hand over the ranked list and the 30-day plan.
If you’d rather we built the projects than just planned them, we’ll do the ones the audit put first. Anything from a quick win to a full agent build.
If there are fewer than five of you and admin takes about an hour a day, there probably isn’t enough here to be worth mapping, and we’ll say so. If you already know exactly which job you want automated, skip the audit and just ask us to build it. And if your processes only exist in your head, we’ll tell you to go and write them down first.
If yours is not here, ask on the call. It is twenty minutes about how the practice runs, not a pitch.
Often the opposite. We do not resell anything and we take no commission, so the audit is free to conclude that the tool you already pay for does the job, or that the process needs fixing before any tool would help. A fair chunk of most plans is exactly that.
Every recommendation states what data it touches and where that data ends up. Keeping client financial data inside systems you already control is the default, and anything that would move it somewhere new is flagged, with the alternative, before it reaches the plan.
No. Anything where the answer depends on circumstances goes to a person, and the plan says so job by job. What moves is the chasing, the assembly, the drafting and the reminding, which is where most of the hours are anyway.
Your ICAEW, ACCA or AAT obligations are treated as constraints the plan has to work within, not as an afterthought. Nothing signs off accounts or a return, the review stays where it is, and the audit trail generally gets better rather than worse.
That is one of the first things we check. Some of it is the API, some is a feature your software already ships that nobody switched on, and some is email and a shared sheet joined up properly. Where your system will not do something, the plan says so rather than pretending.
Usually yes, because compliance work repeats on a calendar and that is exactly what automates well. If you are a sole practitioner with a handful of clients, we will probably tell you to save your money.
The plan lands about two weeks after the call. Most practices have the first automation live within a week of that, because the first one is usually records chasing and that does not need anyone to change software.
Either. The plan is yours to take to anyone, including whoever supports your practice management system. If you would rather we set up the first two, that is a separate job and you decide after you have read the plan.
The call takes twenty minutes and it is about how the practice runs, not about software. The plan lands about two weeks later.