Automating Admin in a Small Basildon Business: Invoices, Chasing and Copying

The Friday afternoon list

Most owners have one. Invoices to raise. Three customers who have not paid. Details to retype from an email into a spreadsheet and then into the accounts. A summary of the week that you keep meaning to write.

None of it is hard. All of it takes time, and it takes it at the point when you are tired.

Four admin jobs his website lists

- Raising invoices.
- Chasing late payments.
- Copying details between systems.
- The weekly report.

How to choose which

Rank them by how often they happen and how much they annoy you.

1. If payment chasing is awkward, start there. A polite, consistent reminder is something software does well.
2. If you retype the same data every day, copying between systems usually pays back fastest.
3. If you never know how the week went, start with the report.

A small worked example

A two-van firm covering the borough from Fryerns to Vange finishes jobs through the week. Each job needs an invoice, and each late invoice needs a nudge. With an agent, the invoice is raised when the job is marked complete, a reminder goes out if it is unpaid, and the owner sees a short Friday summary of what is paid and what is not.

What to keep in your hands

- Anything involving a dispute.
- Credit terms for a new customer.
- Anything you would not want read out in public.

The agent follows the rules you set and hands difficult cases to a person.

What it is not

It is not an accounting package and it does not give tax advice. It works with the tools you already have.

How it runs

A free first call, an audit of the repetitive work worth automating, the build and install, then training and support. He starts with the single task that makes the most difference. There is no published price. He works remotely from Horndean, Hampshire.

See the profile.

Contact

Call or WhatsApp Dean Keating on 07418 627304, or email dean@deankeating.com. His full profile is on this site. Websites: ai-agent.deankeating.com and deankeating.com.

About this guide

Basildon.co is published by Dean Keating, who also runs the service described here. He is based in Horndean, Hampshire, not in Basildon, and works with Basildon and Essex businesses remotely. If you want someone in the room, say so on the first call and look at Basildon-based providers too. This guide recommends our own service, so compare it with other providers before you decide.