AI Automation
AI automation takes a repetitive, rule-based job off your team — invoice processing, email triage, reporting, CRM admin — and runs it against the tools you already use, with a person kept in the loop wherever a decision needs one. BigBerri builds it for UK businesses on accounts you own, with a fixed price quoted after a free discovery call.
- Single workflow live in 1–3 weeks
- Fixed price, never a day rate
- Runs on your accounts, not ours
- A human step wherever it matters
Or call 07305 694001.
The work that eats your week
Each of these is a workflow we build for UK businesses. None of them needs judgement every time, which is exactly what makes them safe to automate — the routine runs on its own, and a person handles the exception.
Invoice processing
Extract the total, supplier and due date from an invoice, match it to a purchase order, code it to the right account, and post it to your accounting software.
Email triage & replies
Classify incoming email, draft a response, route it to the right person and flag the urgent — without someone reading every message first.
Report generation
Pull data from several systems, format it into a branded report, and send it on a schedule — the weekly dashboard, the monthly review, the client update.
CRM admin
Enrich records from email and public data and keep the pipeline current, so the CRM is trustworthy without anyone keying it in by hand.
Follow-up sequences
Trigger a personalised follow-up by email, SMS or task based on what a customer did, the deal stage, or time elapsed.
Document extraction
Turn PDFs, forms, contracts and scanned documents into structured data in your systems of record, with a check step where accuracy matters.
The systems it connects to
Automation is only useful if it can reach the tools where the work actually happens. The connector layer — Zapier, Make, a direct API — is rarely the constraint. What decides the scope is what each business system permits: some expose everything, some allow reading but not writing, and some need the vendor to approve the connection first. We check yours before quoting.
Orchestration
- Zapier
- Make
- n8n
- Native REST APIs
- Webhooks
Accounting & finance
- Xero
- Sage
- QuickBooks
- Stripe
- GoCardless
CRM
- HubSpot
- Salesforce
- Pipedrive
- Zoho
- Microsoft Dynamics
Email & documents
- Google Workspace
- Microsoft 365
- Outlook and Gmail
- SharePoint and Google Drive
- Airtable and Notion
Helpdesk & comms
- Zendesk
- Intercom
- Freshdesk
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
Everything else
- Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento
- Any system with a documented API
- Internal databases
- Bespoke line-of-business tools
- The spreadsheets it is meant to replace
What a Project Looks Like
Every project is scoped and quoted after a free discovery call, so you get a fixed price for your situation rather than a number that assumes someone else’s. These are the shapes most engagements take.
Single Workflow
One repetitive process that runs constantly and follows clear rules.
Typical timeline: 1–3 weeks
- One process automated end to end
- Connected to your existing tools
- Human review step where needed
- Monitoring and alerts
Workflow Bundle
A team with several related processes eating the same hours every week.
Typical timeline: 3–6 weeks
- Three to five workflows
- Shared data layer across tools
- Document and email processing
- Monthly improvement review
Practice-Wide Programme
Organisations rolling automation out across departments with proper controls.
Typical timeline: 6–12 weeks
- Staged rollout across teams
- Custom AI agents with approvals
- Reporting and audit trail
- Training for your staff
Timelines are typical and depend on how many systems are involved and how ready your data is. Tell us what you need and we will give you a fixed price and a date.
What the weeks actually look like
This is a typical single-workflow build. A bundle of related workflows runs longer, and a practice-wide programme longer still. The column on the right is the part most proposals leave out: an automation project stalls on system access and on the exceptions nobody wrote down, far more often than on the engineering.
| When | What we do | What we need from you |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1Process audit and rules | We watch the task being done, agree the one workflow to automate first, and write down the rules — including the exceptions that only live in someone’s head. We check what each system in scope actually permits before promising anything, and we design the failure path and the human approval step at the same time as the happy path. | The person who does the task now, a batch of real sample inputs, the rules as you actually apply them, and read access to the systems in scope. |
| Week 2Build and connect | We build the workflow, connect it to your tools on your own accounts, add the monitoring and the alert, and put the approval step in front of anything that touches money or a customer. Nothing is built inside our accounts. | Access to the systems on your logins, and a decision on who approves the steps that need a person and where alerts should land. |
| Week 3Test on real data and go live | We run the workflow against your real historic inputs, including the awkward ones, and tune it until the exceptions are handled the way you would handle them. Then it goes live, usually on a share of the work first, and we watch every run for the opening fortnight. | Someone to approve the first live runs and to review the cases it gets wrong, so the rules are right before it runs unattended. |
What it must never do
An automation runs without anyone watching, which is the point and also the risk. So we agree where it must stop and hand to a person before we build the part that runs on its own. An automation that knows its limits is worth more than one that does everything, and the most expensive failures we are asked to fix are the ones that ran on, unattended, past the point they should have stopped.
The list is yours, not ours. We draft it from your process and your obligations, you correct it, and it becomes the specification the workflow is built against and tested on.
- Make a decision with a legal or significant effect on a person on its own — that gets the safeguards the law now requires, built in before launch
- Move money, issue a refund or send a customer commitment without a human approval step
- Delete or overwrite a record without an audit trail you can read and reverse
- Run unattended with no monitoring — it alerts a named person rather than failing silently
- Act on data beyond the purpose you agreed it for
- Keep going when an input does not look like anything it has seen — it stops and flags it
Three things to ask any automation supplier
Not legal advice, and your own advisers should confirm how each applies to you. But these are the questions that separate a supplier who has thought about running unattended software on your data from one selling a set of connected apps.
Does anything decide about a person on its own?
On 5 February 2026 section 80 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 replaced the old Article 22 ban: a solely automated decision with a legal or similarly significant effect on someone is now allowed for most personal data, but only with safeguards in place before it is taken — the person is told, can make representations, can obtain human intervention, and can contest it. Special category data such as health is treated more strictly. We design that human step into anything that judges a person.
Is there an audit trail?
Every action an automation takes should be logged, readable and reversible, so that when something goes wrong you can see exactly what it did and undo it. An automation you cannot inspect is one you cannot trust with anything that matters. We build the log in from the start rather than bolting it on after an incident.
Where does the data go, and who is the controller?
You stay the data controller. The automation should process only the data the task needs, under a lawful basis you have recorded, kept to a retention rule rather than indefinitely, on infrastructure in the UK or EU under a data processing agreement. Any model provider it relies on is named as a sub-processor rather than left implicit.
How handover and support work
An automation is something you come to depend on quietly, so it has to keep working whether or not you are still talking to us. The arrangement is built to survive the end of the engagement rather than depend on it.
Built on your accounts
Every workflow runs on your own logins with the tool vendors, with us as an invited user. Ending the relationship means removing a user, not migrating an automation off our infrastructure — because there is none of ours to migrate off.
What you receive
The workflow written up as a document you can read, the exception list as it was tested, the monitoring dashboard, and the logs. Enough for another developer to pick it up without ringing us.
The first fortnight
We watch every run while it beds in, because the inputs an automation trips over are the ones nobody thought to mention. Fixes to the rules ship while you watch rather than at a quarterly review.
After that
Optional ongoing monitoring and improvement as your process changes. Agreed before launch rather than during an incident: what is covered, how quickly we respond, and what counts as new work. Every build has a named person to escalate to.
Built for the back office of UK businesses
Each sector page sets out the processes we automate there, the systems they run on, and where a person has to stay in the loop.
Not listed? If a job is repetitive, rule-based and eating hours, it is worth a conversation. Tell us about yours.
The questions people ask before hiring us
How do we know which tasks are worth automating?
The honest test is volume multiplied by how manual it is: a task someone does the same way several times a week, with digital inputs and outputs and clear rules, is a candidate; a task that needs judgement every time is not. We do not put a stock hours-saved figure on it, because it depends entirely on your volume and how long the job takes you now. On the free discovery call we work that number out from your figures rather than ours, and if the saving does not justify the build we say so.
Do we have to change or replace our existing systems?
No. We build automation that connects to the tools you already run — Xero, Sage and QuickBooks, HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive, Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, Shopify and WooCommerce, and most systems with a documented API. What decides the scope is what each system permits: some expose everything, some allow reading but not writing, and some need the vendor to approve the connection. We check yours before quoting rather than after.
What happens when an automation gets something wrong?
Every workflow has a defined failure path before it goes live: what it does when a field is missing, when a system is down, or when the input does not look like anything it has seen. Anything touching money or a customer commitment gets a human approval step rather than running unattended. It alerts a named person instead of failing silently, which is the failure mode that actually costs you — an automation nobody noticed had stopped.
Can it make decisions about our customers or staff on its own?
Only within limits we design in deliberately. From 5 February 2026 the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 replaced the old blanket ban on solely automated decisions that have a legal or similarly significant effect on a person, but it requires safeguards to be in place before the decision is taken — the person must be told, able to make representations, able to obtain human intervention, and able to contest it — and it treats special category data such as health more strictly. In practice we build the human step into anything that decides about a person, which is both the lawful design and the sensible one.
Who owns the automations if we part ways?
You do, and this one matters more than people expect. The workflows are built on your accounts with the tool vendors, not ours, so if we stop working together everything keeps running and you keep the logins. The code and the configuration are yours on completion and full payment. An agency that builds automations inside its own accounts is selling you something you can never take with you.
How do we know you will still be here in two years?
You should not have to bet on it, and the way we build means you are not. Everything sits on your own accounts and on mainstream tools another developer can work with, rather than on anything proprietary to us. Big Berri Limited is registered in England and Wales, company number 16562429, and ICO registered under ZC119995. Ask any supplier what happens to your automations if they close, and be wary of a vague answer.
Read before you buy ai automation
- AI Automation
Zapier vs Custom AI Automation: Which Fits a UK Business?
Zapier prices by the task, and its own documentation is precise about what counts as one and what does not. Worked through against a custom build’s flat running cost.
- AI Automation
What an AI Automation Agency Costs in the UK, and What You Are Paying For
The tools cost next to nothing. So what is the agency fee for? An honest breakdown of what sits inside it, what actually moves it, and when you should skip the agency entirely.
- AI Automation
AI Automation for Accountants UK: 10 Workflows to Automate First (2026)
A practical guide for UK accountancy and bookkeeping practices: which workflows to automate first, what it costs in 2026, a worked ROI example, and the controls you need before anything touches a client file.
- AI Automation
AI CRM Integration UK: How to Add AI to HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho and More (2026)
A practical guide for UK SMEs on adding AI to the CRM you already run: the 10 integrations with the fastest payback, native AI features versus custom work, 2026 UK prices, UK GDPR considerations and a six-step plan.
Who uses this
- AI for Dental Practices
- AI for Estate Agents
- AI for Law Firms
- AI for Accountancy Firms
- AI for Trades & Home Services
- AI for Clinics & Private Healthcare
- AI for E-commerce & Retail
- AI for Recruitment Agencies
- AI for Care Homes
- AI for Veterinary Practices
- AI for Restaurants
- AI for Gyms & Fitness Studios
- AI for Car Dealerships
- AI for Insurance Brokers
- AI for Logistics & Haulage Companies
- AI for Hotels & Guest Houses
- AI for Opticians
- AI for Pharmacies
- AI for Hair & Beauty Salons
What you can hold us to
Plenty of agencies close this part of a page with client logos. We do not publish any, because we will not put a name or a number on this site that we cannot evidence. What follows instead is what you can check in a public register, and what sits in the contract either way.
What the discovery call actually is
Thirty minutes, free, no obligation and no salesperson. You describe what is costing you time or customers, we ask about the systems involved, and you leave with an honest view of whether this is worth doing. We regularly end that call by saying the tool you already pay for covers it.
You own the result
The code, the repository and the accounts are set up in your company name rather than ours, and they are yours on completion and full payment. Nothing runs on infrastructure we control, so ending the relationship does not end the thing we built.
A fixed price, never a day rate
Every project is quoted as a fixed price with a written scope after the call, so an over-run is our problem rather than yours. If the scope changes, we say so and re-quote before doing the work, not after.
Where your data sits
In the UK or EU, under a data processing agreement, kept only as long as you specify. Any model provider we rely on is named as a sub-processor rather than left implicit, and we will tell you plainly where something you have asked for would put a commitment of yours at risk.
What happens when it goes wrong
Agreed before launch rather than negotiated during an incident: what is covered, how quickly we respond, and what counts as new work. Every build has a defined escalation to a person, because the failure that costs you is the one nobody noticed.
Two things you can check
Big Berri Limited is registered in England and Wales, company number 16562429, and registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under reference ZC119995. Both are public registers. Look us up rather than taking our word for it.
Automate the routine. Keep the judgement.
Book a free discovery call — we will find the workflow worth automating first, work out the saving from your own figures, and tell you if it is not worth it.
Book a Free Discovery Call