How much does it cost to automate a small business finance department?

The short answer

There is no single price, because no two finance departments are the same. The cost depends on how many systems you use, how many transactions you process, how messy the current setup is and how much you want automated. What you can do is understand what you are paying for, and check that the savings are bigger than the cost before you commit.

What are you actually paying for?

Most finance automation projects have four parts:

• A review of how your finance works today. Mapping every routine, who does it, how long it takes and where errors creep in. This is where the savings are found.
• The build. Setting up rules, bank feeds and capture tools, and connecting your other systems (CRM, project management, booking or payment tools) to Xero or QuickBooks through APIs.
• Software subscriptions. Your accounting software, plus any capture, reporting or AI tools. Many businesses already pay for more than they use.
• Ongoing checking. Automation does the processing, but someone qualified still needs to review the output, handle exceptions and keep things running as the business changes.

What makes it cost more (or less)?

• Number of systems. Joining two apps is simpler than joining five. Each API connection needs building, testing and monitoring.
• Transaction volumes. More transactions usually means more value from automation, but also more rules and exceptions to set up.
• How clean the books are now. If the ledger needs tidying first, that comes before automation.
• Industry quirks. Work in progress for project businesses, CIS for construction, or multiple entities all add complexity, and usually add the biggest savings too.
• How far you want to go. Automated bill capture is quick to set up. A live WIP platform with its own AI assistant is a bigger build.

Where do the savings come from?

The savings are mostly time, fewer mistakes and faster information:

• Processing hours. Data entry, coding, matching and chasing are the first things to go. One of our clients, The Unit Group, went from a full-time bookkeeping role to one day a week.
• Month-end time. A London interior design firm cut its month-end WIP from 5 to 10 working days to about half a day of checking.
• Penalties and interest. GCL Property Group went from paying HMRC fines every month to being fully up to date.
• Better decisions. Live numbers on cash, margins and project profitability are hard to price, but often worth the most.

How to work out the payback

Before you start, do a simple sum:

1. List each finance routine and the hours it takes each month.
2. Multiply by what those hours cost you, including your own time.
3. Add what errors, late filings and slow information cost you each year.
4. Estimate how much of that automation removes. Routine processing often shrinks dramatically; judgement and review do not.
5. Compare the annual saving with the build cost plus the yearly running cost.

For example (illustrative figures only): if routine processing takes 60 hours a month at £25 an hour, that is £18,000 a year. If automation removes two thirds of it, the saving is about £12,000 a year, before counting fewer errors or faster reporting. That gives you a clear ceiling for what the project is worth.

Ways to keep the cost down

• Start with the routine that costs you the most hours, prove it, then expand.
• Use the software you already pay for before buying more.
• Keep your own team and move them from processing to checking.
• Insist that every routine is documented, so you are not locked in.

Getting a figure for your business

A good adviser will not give you a price before understanding how your business works. At Oswald Murdock we start with a short conversation and a review of your current process, then show you what can be automated, what it would save and what it would cost, so you can see the payback before you commit. Read more about how we modernise finance departments, or see our work for businesses in central London.

This article is general information only and is not advice for your specific circumstances. Please speak to a qualified accountant before making changes to your finance processes or systems.