The honest comparison
How AI Business PRO compares
If your finance and back-office work is held together by manual copy-paste, you have four realistic options. Here is the honest trade-off between each — including where we are not the right choice.
Book the Mapvs. the Big Four & big integrators
| AI Business PRO | Big Four / integrator | |
|---|---|---|
| Team on a small fix | A lean senior team — no army | A 5-person crew (PM + BA + dev) or a new ERP |
| Price | Fair, flat, scoped before you sign | Six figures; scope creep |
| Time to first result | A quick win in month one | Months to quarters |
| Who does the work | The people who scope are the people who build | Juniors on your account |
| Incentive | Independent — we recommend the cheapest thing that works | Bill maximum man-days; ecosystem lock-in |
| What you are left with | Automation your team runs and extends | A deck, or a dependency |
vs. generic AI / automation agencies
| AI Business PRO | Tool-first AI agency | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting point | The process first | The tool first |
| Approach | Fix the process, then automate | Bolt a bot onto a broken process |
| Durability | Architecture that survives system changes | Breaks in ~6 months on a format / portal / ERP change |
| Auditability | Deterministic — source doc → rule → timestamp → approver | Black-box LLM output you can not defend to an auditor |
| Lock-in | We hand it back to your team | Dependent on their platform |
vs. doing nothing / DIY tool sprawl
| AI Business PRO | Do nothing / DIY | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | One scoped fix at a fair price | Mounting tool spend, integration debt, manual error cost |
| Risk | Audit-defensible, key-person risk removed | The close lives in one person’s spreadsheets and head |
| Capacity | We absorb routine volume and spikes | Capable people stuck re-keying between systems |
When each option is the right call
- Choose a Big-Four / integrator if board-level brand safety on a large transformation program matters more to you than cost or speed.
- Choose a point tool / SaaS if you have one narrow, stable, high-volume task and the in-house IT to maintain the integration when it breaks.
- Choose AI Business PRO if you want the specific manual finance work fixed fast, on the tools you already own, audit-defensibly — without an army, a new system, or lock-in.
Common comparison questions
- Is AI Business PRO cheaper than the Big Four?
- For the small, fixable process problems we focus on, yes — substantially. The Big Four put a five-person team or a new ERP on a problem that a lean senior team can solve directly. We scope the work in a paid Map first, then quote a fair, flat price that holds.
- Do I have to replace my ERP?
- No. We work the layer above and around the ERP — reconciliations, exceptions, and the copy-paste between systems — on SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, Helios, ABRA, K2 and the apps you already run. No rip-and-replace.
- How is this different from buying an AI tool or RPA?
- Tools and bots are bolted onto the existing process and break when a format or portal changes. We fix the process first, automate the point of highest risk last, and build it deterministically so it survives the next system change — then hand it to your team.
- Will the automation survive an ERP or AI-model update?
- That is exactly what our Process Governance retainer is for — fractional architecture that makes sure model and system updates never quietly break the logic. It is continuous yield, not a break-fix ticket queue.
- Is it auditable and DORA-ready?
- Yes. What we build is deterministic and rules-based: every match shows its source document, the rule that matched it, the timestamp, and who approved it. Our contracts are DORA Article 30-ready by default (audit rights, incident notice, exit clauses). We build DORA-ready automation; the compliance opinion itself is a referral partner’s job.
Not sure which option fits?
Start with the Map — a short, paid audit of your finance and back-office processes. You leave with a prioritised roadmap and a clear view of what is worth doing, whoever you build it with.
Book the Map- DORA Article 30-ready
- Senior-led — no juniors
- Independent — no lock-in
- Proven in regulated finance