The problem
A growing accountancy firm had client data spread across its practice management system, resourcing tool, Companies House and spreadsheets, and a lot of skilled people doing repetitive checks by hand. One example: checking Self Assessment payments with HMRC across thousands of clients took days every quarter.
What I did
Two days a week, I built and led the firm's in-house data team, and with them delivered:
- An automated Self Assessment payment checker covering around 1,900 clients.
- A central client database on Azure, joining the practice management system with Companies House and Charity Commission data.
- Reporting that reconciles resourcing plans with actual time and jobs.
- Tools to pull VAT deadlines from HMRC, extract tables from financial PDFs, and prototype automated AML/ID checks.
- Innovation workshops with the firm's graduates.
The result
- The Self Assessment check went from 4 days to 27 minutes, saving about 4 days every quarter.
- A team that kept building after the automations were handed over.
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