Client onboarding
Gathering documents, sending engagement letters, setting up access, running the same intake process for every new client.
Professional services firms
Give your expertise
more room in the week.
I help professional services firms simplify repeated administration around client work: collecting information, preparing billing, maintaining records and drafting updates. Professional decisions, advice and client approval stay with your team.
At a glance
- Who it fits
- Professionals billing £200 an hour or more
- What it removes
- Onboarding, billing, document preparation, records and follow-up
- Where it starts
- A free conversation, then a £350 Process Review or a broader Audit from £650
- Your time
- Under two hours
The problem
It is not your skill
that is the problem.
Accountants, consultants, independent advisers and architect founders have one thing in common: their time carries a clear price. And a real part of every week goes to work that does not need that expertise. Onboarding paperwork, invoicing, keeping records current, preparing documents, chasing, reporting.
The recurring preparation can often be reduced: retyping, filing, assembling a report and creating a next-action task. Reviewing professional advice, approving documents and deciding what a client needs remain skilled work.
The Audit maps where those hours go, puts a number on what they cost in a year at your own rate, and ranks the opportunities by impact.
The question is not whether to remove this work. It is which process to fix first, and whether the numbers justify the build.
Where the time goes
Where billable time
actually goes
The heaviest tasks cluster in the same four places across very different professions.
Common candidates in a professional firm
- Engagement letters and onboarding packs
- Document preparation from structured intake
- Milestone billing and payment follow-up
- Recurring client reports and progress notes
- Post call records and next actions
- Alerts for deadlines entered and maintained by the responsible professional
- Collection and tracking of information for professionally reviewed conflict and intake checks
- A weekly view of what is outstanding across matters
The arithmetic
What the hours actually cost
The arithmetic is simple and worth doing with your own figures. Five hours of admin a week, over a forty-eight-week year, is 240 hours.
At £300 an hour that is £72,000 of expertise spent on work a system could handle. At £400 it is £96,000. These are illustrations built on an assumed rate and an assumed number of weeks, not measured results. Your rate and your real hours give the only number that matters, which is what the Audit produces.
Running the calculation properly is worth more than the headline. It sets a realistic ceiling on what fixing the problem is worth spending.
≈12 → <1hours of admin in a busy month, at a payroll firm serving around 200 client companies
Premium Paye
At Premium Paye in France, invoice preparation, direct debits and online onboarding were connected. The founder reports around twelve hours of admin in a busy month with new clients before the change, and under one hour now across those processes.
Read the case studyHow it works
From your first question
to a working solution.
We agree the right depth of discovery first. Each paid stage has its own deliverables and fixed fee; you decide whether to continue after it.
First, a free 15-minute conversation to understand the challenge and agree the appropriate next step.
Understand your business
We explore the process, what you want to achieve and how your team prefers to work. I challenge the proposed solution if the underlying problem is different.
You receiveA clear process map, written recommendations and an agreed priority.
Check the tools and feasibility
During separately scoped Process Design, I check the connections, permissions, costs and exceptions that could affect the solution.
You receiveA documented workflow, feasibility findings and the requirements for a reliable build.
Agree the scope and price
Before implementation, we agree what will be built, the timeline, responsibilities and how we will check that it works.
You receiveA written proposal with a fixed build price, acceptance checks and any ongoing costs.
Build and test
I build the agreed solution and test normal cases, exceptions and approvals. Your team reviews it against the checks we agreed.
You receiveA working solution, a demonstration and the agreed checks completed before handover.
Document, train and hand over
I show your team how to use the solution, what to monitor and how to handle exceptions. We clarify ownership and support.
You receivePractical instructions, a walkthrough and clear support terms so your team can run it.
One recurring processFocused Process Review · £350Several connected prioritiesTime Leak Audit · from £650
Discovery, Process Design and implementation each have an agreed scope and fee. You choose the appropriate discovery service; buying both is not required. Testing, documentation and team handover are included in the agreed implementation scope.
Before we talk
What professionals ask
before starting.
Confidentiality, client data and professional obligations come up every time. They should.
What happens to client data?
Nothing moves anywhere you have not agreed. I work inside the systems you already hold client data in, and the Audit sets out exactly what would touch what before anything is built.
If a process cannot be automated without moving data somewhere you are not comfortable with, that is a finding, and I will say so.
Does this replace professional judgement?
No, and it should not. The decisions that need your expertise stay with you. What gets removed is the administrative work that surrounds them.
Do I have to change systems?
I start with the tools you already use. Some workflows can use built-in features; others need a connector or an API-based service. We check access, usage limits, data handling and recurring costs before choosing the setup. You own the accounts, and the proposal identifies the subscriptions and support the agreed workflow needs.
How do I know it is worth it before I spend anything?
The free fifteen-minute review exists for that. If the pattern is not there, you will hear it then rather than after you have paid for an Audit.
Keep reading
Related
Your business
Reclaim the hours
that carry a price.
Tell me what your week actually looks like and I will show you where billable time is leaking. If there is nothing worth fixing, I will say so.
15 minutes · No charge
Prefer to write? [email protected]