# Professional services firm: £60k saved over twelve months on a £3k build

Source: https://getstartedwithai.net/case-studies/professional-services-firm-60k-saved-on-3k-build
Site: Get Started With AI
Tagline: Build AI automations that actually run your business.
Audience: solo professionals, freelancers, consultants and AI implementers in training
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# Professional services firm: £60k saved over twelve months on a £3k build

A professional services firm built a single client onboarding automation as a first project. The build took two weeks, ran for twelve months without intervention, and produced a Freed Hours Flywheel measurable in the timesheet system the firm already ran. A clean example of the compounding pattern that follows a good embed.

## The build

Onboarding ran across email, contracts, working folder setup, kickoff scheduling and first-week task setup. The audit picked it as the fastest win because every partner did some part of it every week, in slightly different shapes. The build took two weeks; the documentation took longer than the automation.

## The compounding pattern

In month one, the build saved roughly an hour per new client. In month four, it had been refined to save closer to two hours per new client because the team had data on what the partners were still editing. By month twelve, the saving was closer to two and a half hours per client, with no further build work.

- Month 1: 1 hour saved per onboarding, six onboardings, six hours.
- Months 2 to 4: refinements based on output review.
- Month 12: 2.5 hours saved per onboarding, on a higher onboarding rate.
- Total practitioner time freed across the year: 540 hours.

## The cost

Build cost: £3,000 in practitioner time over two weeks. Tooling: £15 a month, paid out of the existing software budget. Maintenance: 30 minutes a month from the named owner, the operations manager. No additional headcount or budget.

## The outcome

- 540 practitioner hours reclaimed across twelve months.
- At an average partner rate, roughly £60,000 of time freed.
- Onboarding consistency improved measurably; client kickoff calls now take 30 minutes rather than 45.
- Two of the partners proposed three new automation candidates after seeing the first one compound.

## See this kind of build run live

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## Questions people ask before they start

### Why did the saving grow rather than stay flat?

Because the output review in months one to four caught the cases where the automation was producing usable but suboptimal output. Each correction made the next month better. By month four the build was more accurate than the original manual process.

### Was the £60k figure measured or estimated?

Measured against the firm's own timesheet system. Every partner logs onboarding time as a separate code, so the saving is directly comparable to the prior year's logged time.

### Why did the partners propose more automations after this one?

The Flywheel pattern. The first build produced visible time, which the partners spent on higher-value work. That experience disposes the team to suggest the next candidate, because they have already seen the upside land on themselves.