Who runs your back office?

In a one-person firm, the back office is you: the mail, the diary, the notes after a call, the chasing.

Eight questions show how much of that an assistant could carry, and how ready your set-up is for one. Answer for how you actually work, not how you would like to. Nothing is recorded until you send it.

1. Q1Where does your business actually live, day to day?

   In my inbox. If it matters, it is in there somewhere.In my inbox, a calendar and a notebook, which I keep in step.Across a few apps, each holding its own piece.In one set of folders on my machine that everything else feeds.
2. Q2After a call with a client, what gets written down?

   Not much. I remember the gist.A few lines in a notebook or on my phone.A proper note, most times, if the day allows.A write-up from the transcript: what was said, promised, and when to chase.
3. Q3Someone owes you a reply and it has not come. How do you notice?

   When it occurs to me, or when they apologise.I flag the email or set a reminder.I keep a follow-up list and check it each week.Every contact has a follow-up date, and I am told when one is due.
4. Q4Double bookings and forgotten travel time. How are they caught?

   On the day, usually.I look over the week ahead on Sunday evening.My calendar warns me when things overlap.A daily check for clashes, travel time and details that disagree.
5. Q5If the service holding your client records closed tomorrow, what would you keep?

   Whatever is in my sent mail.An export, if I could work out how.Most of it. I keep my own copies in documents and spreadsheets.All of it. They are plain files on my machine, with every change kept.
6. Q6How have you used an AI assistant for business admin?

   I have not, beyond trying it once or twice.To draft the odd email in a chat window.Regularly, pasting in what it needs to know each time.It works on my own files and mail, and I check what it did.
7. Q7What would you let an assistant see, and on what terms?

   Nothing yet. I do not know where it would end up.Drafts I have written, with names taken out.My mail and diary, once I understood where they went.Mail, diary and notes, on my own subscription and machine, under my rules.
8. Q8The admin you keep putting off. How long is the list?

   There is no list. It is more of a feeling.Long, and written down somewhere.Manageable. I block out time for it most weeks.Short, because most of it is done before I get to it.

The button opens an email to us, copied to Rabbie, our robot, who keeps the diary. Your result travels in it so we can prepare. You can change or delete it before you send, and nothing leaves your browser until you do. The offering this relates to is Business Buddy. For the difference between a chat window and an assistant that does the work, try Chatbot or do-bot?

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