Local guides · Post 23
What to ask before handing a Pembrokeshire business's admin to AI
For Pembrokeshire owners with two to fifty staff: the questions to settle before AI touches any of the admin, and the hours it quietly takes from you now.
Around Narberth, the pattern is familiar. Work is booked in Tenby, a quote goes out from Fishguard, and by Friday the owner is somewhere between Haverfordwest and Milford Haven with three jobs running and a phone that will not stop.
The jobs get quoted for. The admin that follows them does not. Quotes, reminders, booking notes, supplier messages, the same replies typed out again and again on a phone.
The loop here comes before any of that: choosing what to hand over first. Most people start with the task that annoys them most. A better start is the task with the clearest rules and the smallest cost when it goes wrong. Four questions sort one from the other.
The maths (a sketch, not a client figure)
Pick one admin task and count it honestly. The figures below are assumptions, not a client figure, and you should swap in your own rate.
- × 3 hours a week on quotes and follow-ups = the time cost
- × £25 an hour (assumed) = £75 a week
- × 46 working weeks (assumed) = £3,450 a year
The same task with a draft step: software gathers the details and writes the first version, and a named person reads it and approves in a few minutes.
Score it: the three checks
- Hours. A task has to eat real time before it is worth handing over. Half an hour a week rarely clears the bar. Three hours does.
- Repeat. Could a new starter run it from one written page? If the steps are the same each time, the answer is yes, and the task is a candidate. If it changes every time, it is not ready.
- Risk-if-wrong. A wrong booking note is a small tidy-up. A wrong figure or the wrong person copied in is not. The size of that cost decides who checks the draft, and whether it sends at all.
Try one thing this week (free)
Each time an admin task lands this week, write it on a sheet with the minutes it took. By Friday, add the minutes up and mark how often each task came back. The one at the top is your first candidate, and you will have the evidence to say why.
Where a person stays
Software prepares the draft. A named person decides whether it leaves. Nothing sends unchecked. The human parts are the judgement and the final send. Financial, compliance and legal work stays approval-only, always, with a person's name against it. If a task cannot be written down on one page, it is not ready to hand over, and that call stays human too.
FAQ
Score your list against hours, repeat and risk. The first candidate eats the most time and runs to a pattern you can describe.
One page is enough. Write the steps in your own words, the way you would explain them to someone new. That page is all the written rules you need.
Not always. Annoyance and cost are different things. Start with the task that eats the most hours and runs to a pattern you can describe.
One that changes shape every time, or one where a wrong draft would be hard to undo. Those stay with a person until the rules are clearer.
One fixed fee. A one-hour call, a written report, and a 30-minute follow-up that ranks what to build first. 5 hours a week found or a full refund, and the fee credits in full against any build.