An agent factory for a firm with no IT department
Software teams are moving from one assistant to a loop of agents. The same model will reach small service firms, provided their work is written down.
- agent factory
- AI agents
- jobs
Blog
Why most business software records instead of acting, what the unsent invoice really costs, and how small firms should think about AI touching customers.
An agent factory in a small firm: the loop around the job
Eight stages from enquiry to payment: what the agent prepares, where a person decides, and what breaks if you skip a stage. Plus the order to build it in.
- agent factory
- AI agents
- jobs
What is operational intelligence software? A guide for small businesses
What operational intelligence software is, how it differs from BI and CRM, what to ask a vendor, and where a small service business should start.
- operational intelligence
- software
- jobs
Who owns what your agent factory learns about your firm
The valuable part of an agent loop is what it learns about your firm: how you price, how you write, what you correct. Check what stays with you if you leave.
- agent factory
- data ownership
- software vendors
A complaint is a job nobody priced
Callbacks and warranty visits are unplanned, uncosted and invisible in the margin. Treating a complaint as a job with its own record changes what a firm can see.
- complaints
- warranty
- callbacks
The customer asks when you are coming. Nobody knows
In most small service firms the status of a job lives in a technician's head, a van and a group chat. The office cannot answer a customer without three phone calls.
- job status
- dispatch
- customer communication
Your accountant should not have to do archaeology
An accountant can sort a cost into the right category. Only you know which job a receipt belongs to, and you know it best on the day you paid it.
- bookkeeping
- expenses
- documents
A firm that lives in one head cannot take a holiday
If the owner disappears for two weeks, the work can carry on. What stops is everything never written down: prices, promises and who still owes what.
- absence
- handover
- approval
In a small firm, the archive is an inbox with attachments
Fourteen months after the job, the customer calls about a leak. What was fitted, who bought it and the photo before the wall was closed are all somewhere.
- documents
- records
- warranty
Your calendar only knows about time
A service firm is scheduled by who can be where, with which van and which tools. A calendar sees none of that, so the real plan lives in the owner's head.
- scheduling
- planning
- crew
A good quote sent next week loses to a decent one sent tomorrow
Plenty of quotes are not lost on price. They are lost in the days between the site visit and the evening somebody finally has time to write them up.
- quotes
- sales
- enquiries
Your business software is a filing cabinet with a login
Systems of record were designed for organisations with staff to keep them updated. Small firms do not have that person, so the record is always behind.
- system of record
- system of action
- small business
The unsent invoice is the most expensive thing in a small firm
Small firms rarely fail because the work was bad. They fail because money that had been earned arrived four weeks after it was needed.
- cash flow
- invoicing
- payment terms
Per-seat pricing was designed for companies with seats
The pricing model everyone uses assumes a workforce that grows in identifiable roles. Applied to a five-person firm it taxes the thing you want to do most.
- pricing
- SaaS
- small business
The owner is the integration layer
In most small firms the connection between the tools is a person carrying information between them, and that person is the one who should be selling.
- workflow
- small business
- tools
What to ask before you let AI near a customer
A small firm has one reputation and no communications department. Five questions that matter more than any demo when software starts writing to your customers.
- AI
- approval
- risk