For professional services firms
Where does non-billable time go in your firm?
Recurring client reporting, proposal preparation, document intake, onboarding and meeting follow-up often absorb time that isn't billed directly. Map them, cost them, and see which one is genuinely worth automating first.
Pick a workflow to inspect
Recurring client reporting
Rules-based assembly with AI-drafted commentaryIllustrative: 6 hrs/week across three peopleThe same pack, same cadence, from data already structured.
What repeats
- Pulling the same inputs from the same systems on a fixed cadence.
- Building the same tables, charts and period comparisons.
- Drafting the standard narrative that explains the movements.
1 more
- Formatting, packaging and distributing to a known list.
What stays human
- Interpreting anything unusual in the numbers.
- The judgment call about what the client needs to hear and act on.
- Sign-off before anything reaches the client.
Prerequisites
- A reliable source of record for the figures, not a hand-maintained sheet.
- Consistent client and engagement coding across systems.
- An agreed reviewer and an approval step before distribution.
Next step in the assessment
In the assessment, map recurring reports under Knowledge work and give combined weekly hours across everyone who touches the pack — not just the person who assembles it.
Your selection carries over. Loads shown here are illustrative examples, not measured benchmarks.
Why this work absorbs so much time
In advisory, accounting, legal, engineering and agency firms, the work that leaks time is rarely the client work itself. It is the assembly around it: pulling the same figures into the same monthly pack, rebuilding a proposal from three older ones, chasing a client for the documents needed to start, writing up what was agreed in a meeting.
That work repeats on a known cadence, follows a recognizable shape, and mostly draws on information the firm already holds. Those three properties — repetition, structure, accessible data — are what make a workflow describable, and describable work is what automation can carry.
Two costs firms usually leave out
Internal coordination. A monthly client pack rarely belongs to one person. An associate assembles it, a manager reviews it, a partner adds commentary, an admin distributes it. Each handoff adds waiting time that never appears on a timesheet, and it is often larger than the assembly time itself.
Client-side effort. Document intake and onboarding consume your client's time as well as yours. Every extra round of chasing lengthens the engagement start and shapes how the relationship begins. Reducing rounds of chasing is frequently worth more than the hours it returns internally.
Where a firm should start, and where it should not
| Strong first candidates | Later, or never |
|---|---|
| Recurring reporting from structured data | Bespoke technical advice |
| Document intake and chasing | Anything contested or negotiated |
| Proposal first drafts | Pricing and scope decisions |
| Meeting write-ups with review | Client-facing judgment without sign-off |
Recovered billable time is not guaranteed revenue
If non-billable assembly time is reduced, the hours become capacity. Whether that capacity turns into revenue depends on demand, pipeline, pricing and the willingness to redeploy people — none of which automation controls. WhereAI models capacity value at the rates you enter and never converts recovered hours into billing or profit.
Start with your own numbers
Planning estimates based on your inputs and WhereAI assumptions — not guaranteed savings or revenue.