Operations & automation consultancy · United Kingdom
Every business runs on repeated work.
Most of it doesn’t need a person.
Provenance Operations finds the manual, repetitive processes inside small and medium businesses and replaces them with automated systems reliable enough to forget about. Built on your own accounts, with a human in control of every decision that matters.
A rough measure of what one repetitive process costs to run manually each year.
This is what the process costs today, not what automation gives back. Most processes do not go to zero, and what returns is capacity and fewer errors rather than cash in the account. The discovery audit puts a real number on how much of it is recoverable.
The process audit puts a real number on this for your operation.
Sec. 01 / The method
Trace it. Build it. Prove it.
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Step 01 · Trace
Follow the work
Understanding comes before automation. We follow one process from the first trigger to the finished output: every handoff, every re-keyed spreadsheet, every manual check that has quietly become someone’s job. You get a plain-English map of the process, what it costs, and whether it deserves to be automated at all.
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Step 02 · Build
Automate what repeats
We build on the accounts and tools you already own, not on a platform rented from us. That means no black boxes and no lock-in. Everything can be inspected, everything keeps working without us, and everything is yours.
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Step 03 · Prove
Keep the judgement human
We test every system against the real work, document it, and hand it over properly. Wherever a decision carries weight (money leaving, promises made, people affected) the system stops and a person signs it off. Machines do the repetition. You keep the judgement.
The kind of work this removes
- quote built by hand each time → drafted from your own templates and prices, you approve before it sends
- overdue invoices chased by hand → tracked automatically, reminders sent on schedule, escalated to you when ignored
- approvals chased over email → requested and tracked automatically, the approver nudged until they respond
- details re-typed into each system by hand → read once and written to all of them automatically
- numbers gathered by hand into a report each time → pulled from live data on a schedule, ready for you to check
- new-starter forms sent and re-keyed by hand → issued, collected, and filed into each system for you
- stock levels checked by eye and reordered by hand → watched continuously, a reorder drafted for you to approve
- receipts and figures pulled together at month-end → collected and reconciled through the month, ready to sign off
Sec. 02 / Working principles
The specification we hold ourselves to.
Five commitments that shape every engagement.
- P–01 Built on your accounts
- Everything runs in tools you own and can open, inspect, and change. If we parted ways tomorrow, every system would keep working, and you would keep every password.
- P–02 A human holds the pen
- Automation handles repetition. A person approves anything with consequences: payments, pricing, promises, people. We design that boundary in from the start, not bolt it on later.
- P–03 Boring technology, chosen deliberately
- Reliability beats novelty. We would rather hand you a plain system that runs quietly for years than a clever one that needs a specialist to keep alive.
- P–04 If automation isn’t the answer, we say so
- Some processes need a better checklist, not a robot. Some need a hire. You get the honest recommendation, including when it means less work for us.
- P–05 One person, accountable
- You work directly with the person who does the work. Whoever scopes an engagement builds it, and whoever builds it answers for it. There is no account manager to translate through.
Sec. 03 / The engagement
How working together actually runs.
Most people arrive here through a referral, so the way we work is already familiar. This is simply the shape of it.
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Stage 0
A conversation
45 minutes, no charge, no deck. You describe how the work flows; we ask where it hurts. If we cannot help, we say so on the call and point you somewhere better.
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Stage 1
The process audit
A short, fixed-fee diagnostic. We sit inside the real work (the inboxes, the spreadsheets, the handoffs) and give you a written map: what repeats, what it costs, and what is worth automating. The map is yours either way, and you could take it to anyone.
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Stage 2
The build
A fixed scope, agreed in writing, built on your accounts. You see progress as working systems, not status updates, and nothing goes live without your sign-off.
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Stage 3
Handover, properly
Documentation a new hire could follow, a walkthrough with your team, and a running-in period where we stay close. After that the system is simply yours, with us a message away.
Sec. 04 / Fair questions
Things people rightly ask.
Who is this for?
Small and medium businesses in the UK, typically owner-run, and typically somewhere between “the founder does everything” and “we have systems, but people spend their day feeding them”. If work in your business gets done by someone re-typing something, we should talk.
What does it cost?
We agree a fixed fee before work starts, with no day-rate meter running. The audit is deliberately small, and we price the build from what it finds. If the numbers do not clearly pay for themselves, we tell you not to proceed.
Do you use AI?
Where it genuinely helps, such as reading documents or drafting routine messages for a person to review, yes. Where reliability matters more than cleverness, no. AI never gets the final word on a decision that matters; that is a design rule, not a preference.
What happens if something breaks?
We build systems to fail loudly, not silently, so you know before it matters. Every build ships with documentation and a running-in period, and we stay reachable after handover. Nothing depends on one person’s availability for it to keep working.
Sec. 05 / About
Built by an engineer.
Run like one.
Provenance Operations is a one-person firm by design, led by a founder who trained as a mechanical engineer. That background brings a useful habit: nothing ships on a hunch. Everything is drawn, checked and approved, and you assume things will fail so you build them not to.
The same rigour runs through the operational work. We sit inside a business, find what repeats, and replace it with systems a team can trust and inspect. Most automation sold to small firms is a subscription and a prayer. This is quieter, and built to last.
I started Provenance Operations because small and medium businesses deserve that rigour and rarely get it. The name is the promise: provenance is the record of where a thing comes from, and every system we hand over shows its workings.
- Practice
- Provenance Operations
- Founder
- Charlie
- Discipline
- Mechanical engineering
- Territory
- United Kingdom
- Scope
- Operations & automation for SMEs
Sec. 06 / Contact
Get in touch.
Tell us what a normal week looks like and where the repetitive work piles up. If Provenance Operations can help, we will say how. If it cannot, we will say that too.
Email us directly
hello@provenanceoperations