FromFirst

Every company starts as one clear idea.
Then it inherits everything else.

Rethink what you’ve inherited

01 The outside

From the outside, a company looks like one thing.

02 The inside

Inside, it’s everything it’s inherited.

Exports, re-keying, workarounds, habits

03 Take it apart

We take it apart. Most of it goes.

04 Rebuild

What’s essential gets rebuilt properly. With AI where it earns its place.

We go into companies and rethink the systems they’ve inherited. What’s essential gets rebuilt properly, with AI where it earns its place. The rest goes.

How an engagement works

  1. 01

    Question

    We sit with the people doing the work and ask why each step exists. Nothing counts as essential just because it’s always been there.

    You get: a plain map of how the work really flows.

  2. 02

    Strip back

    We separate what the business needs from what it has simply got used to. Then we remove the second.

    You get: a shorter process, agreed before anything is built.

  3. 03

    Rebuild

    We build what’s left properly. Automation where work repeats. AI only where it earns its place. Plain software everywhere else.

    You get: working systems, inside the tools you already use.

  4. 04

    Run it

    We stay on to run what we built, so it keeps working when nobody’s watching.

    You get: failure alerts, and a person who answers.

Part two

Selected work

What we’ve built, and what it changed.

01 · Flower wholesale
  • Florisoft
  • Xero
  • AWS
  • Automation

A UK flower wholesaler

A nightly sync that takes the day’s invoices from Florisoft and posts them to Xero. Anything it can’t match is held for a person to check.

Illustration · example numbers

Illustration with example numbers. Before: a month of invoices piled up for the accountant to upload to Xero by hand at month end. Now: each night they go from Florisoft into Xero on their own, and nothing piles up.

Before · each month, by their accountant

  1. Export the month’s invoices from Florisoft (now done automatically)
  2. Upload them to Xero (now done automatically)
  3. Fix anything that didn’t match (now done automatically)

After · every night, on its own

  1. Invoices posted to Xero automatically

What keeps it honest

  • Nothing is sent twice. VAT is checked to the penny.
  • If it isn’t sure, it holds the invoice and says why.
  • Plain rules, no AI. Alerts if a run fails.

[N] hours a month of their accountant’s time, back.

Built, deployed and running nightly against Xero’s demo company. Live books from November.

We use AI where it removes work. Not where it decorates it.

If rules can do the job, we use rules. A clear rule, with a person to check the odd case, is often all a problem needs.

When AI does earn its place, it’s because it reads, sorts or drafts something people were doing by hand. Someone can always see what it did.

Sometimes the answer is less software, not more. We’ll say so.

Who we are

JamesCo-founder
MitchelCo-founder

Tell us what you’ve inherited.