Ravical has launched Workspace for accounting and professional services firms, with the platform designed to support value-based pricing rather than billing by time.

The launch comes as firms face growing scrutiny of the billable-hour model, with fee pressure and wider use of artificial intelligence prompting debate over how advisory work should be priced.

Workspace is designed to help firms manage work across their client base rather than at the level of individual advisers. The system reviews client communications, financial data, documents and external triggers to identify work that needs to be done before a request is made.

It then carries out that work through pre-built and custom workflows, using client information, identifying the appropriate specialist within a firm and preparing a draft for review and sign-off. A human remains in the loop throughout the process.

Alongside workflow management, the platform includes a billing agent that examines pricing history, client context and the value of the work delivered to support pricing decisions. Ravical is positioning this as an alternative to charging by hours worked, a model that has long shaped accounting and professional services.

The backdrop is a sector under pressure to show how AI-driven efficiency should affect fees. Earlier this year, KPMG negotiated a 14% fee reduction from its auditor, Grant Thornton, which Ravical cited as evidence of a broader industry reassessment of whether time-based billing still reflects the economics of professional work.

That question has become more pressing as firms introduce AI tools that can complete some tasks much faster than before. If a firm continues to charge by the hour while reducing the time needed for routine or semi-routine work, revenue can fall even as productivity rises.

Joris Van Der Gucht, chief executive and co-founder of Ravical, said firms were being forced to rethink that equation.

“The way work is delivered and priced is changing,” Van Der Gucht said. “The economics of the billable hour are breaking down in real time. When a VAT return that used to take three hours takes 20 minutes, firms face a choice: either absorb the margin loss or build a model that prices what the work is actually worth to the client. Ravical is built for the second option.”

Firm-level model

Workspace has been built to operate at the level of the firm rather than as a personal productivity tool for individual staff. The distinction matters because many AI products introduced to professional services have focused on helping a single adviser draft text, search documents or complete tasks more quickly.

By contrast, Ravical argues that a firm-wide system allows knowledge, workflows and pricing records to build up over time and be reused across teams and clients. In that model, expertise held by senior specialists can be made available more broadly across the practice, while advisers remain responsible for review and the client relationship.

The platform also includes what Ravical calls a knowledge verification layer. Work involving domain knowledge such as tax law, legislation and regulatory guidance is checked against primary sources before it reaches the reviewing adviser, with citations included for direct checking.

That reflects a wider concern in accounting and other regulated professions over the reliability of AI-generated outputs. Firms have been exploring how to use AI in client work while limiting the risk of factual errors, unsupported conclusions or advice based on outdated rules.

Van Der Gucht said capacity constraints in advisory work remained a central issue for firms.

“For most firms, the real bottleneck they face every day is the capacity to deliver advisory work,” he said. “Client demand is there, but firms can’t consistently act on it at scale. The only way to unlock that is to change how the work itself gets done.”

Pressure on fees

The accounting profession is contending with several pressures at once. Compliance work has been subject to automation for years, squeezing margins in some service lines. At the same time, experienced staff remain in short supply, making senior expertise harder and more expensive to deploy across a large client base.

Clients are also becoming more familiar with AI tools, which can alter expectations around turnaround times, responsiveness and what they are willing to pay for. That creates a challenge for firms that still rely on fee structures built around hours logged or full-time equivalent staffing models.

Ravical’s pitch is that firms need systems that do more than cut minutes from existing workflows. Instead, they need a way to organise work across the practice and attach prices to outcomes and client value rather than elapsed time.

Whether firms move quickly will depend on more than technology. Pricing in professional services has long been tied to internal processes, partner incentives and client habits, all of which can be difficult to change. But as AI shortens the time needed for parts of accounting and advisory work, the debate over how firms charge clients is becoming harder to avoid.

Earlier this year, KPMG successfully negotiated a 14% fee reduction from its auditor, Grant Thornton, sharpening attention on how AI and automation may affect pricing discussions across the profession.

Sumillion has received a King’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development, placing the Basingstoke-based IT provider among a small group of businesses recognised under the long-running honours scheme.

The recognition comes as the company argues that many organisations still buy technology in ways that increase both cost and environmental waste. In its view, procurement should put sustainability at the centre of decision-making rather than treat it as a secondary issue.

His Majesty The King approved the Prime Minister’s recommendation that Sumillion receive the award in the sustainable development category. The honours programme is widely regarded as the UK’s top formal business recognition.

Sustainability model

Sumillion works with organisations seeking to update their IT estates while reducing environmental impact. Its model centres on carbon-tracked procurement, circular lifecycle management and end-of-life processes designed to cut waste.

The business focuses on extending the working life of devices, improving their use across organisations and handling disposal more responsibly. It argues that these steps can lower carbon intensity per employee and per unit of revenue while reducing unnecessary spending on replacement equipment.

That position reflects a broader debate across the technology channel, where customers are under pressure to manage budgets more tightly while also meeting environmental targets. Suppliers and buyers are increasingly expected to show not only what equipment they purchase, but how long assets remain in service and what happens to them when they are retired.

Chief Executive David Manners set out that argument in direct terms.

“Too many organisations are still buying IT in a way that creates unnecessary cost and waste. Sustainability is often treated as an afterthought rather than a core part of procurement. We have shown that it is possible to reduce impact, improve efficiency, and deliver better outcomes at the same time,” said David Manners, Chief Executive, Sumillion.

Operational model

Sumillion’s internal environmental governance includes ISO 14001 certification, Carbon Literacy training and external assessment through EcoVadis, where it achieved a Silver rating this year. It also says changes to operations and energy use have helped reduce carbon intensity as the business has expanded.

Its environmental target is to reach Net Zero across Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 2030. Those categories cover direct emissions from owned or controlled sources and indirect emissions from purchased energy.

The company links its environmental work with a social impact programme. Through its Green Partnership initiative, it says it has supported clean water projects in Ghana that have provided more than 85,000 people with access to safe drinking water.

It also says education projects backed by the programme have distributed more than 50,000 books and improved digital access. Those figures form part of Sumillion’s broader claim that commercial activity can be tied to measurable outcomes beyond its own operations.

Procurement pressure

The award comes at a time when IT procurement is receiving closer scrutiny from both finance and sustainability teams. Rising expectations around reporting, combined with pressure to control spending, have pushed organisations to look more closely at refresh cycles, asset utilisation and disposal routes.

In practice, that has led more buyers to examine refurbished hardware, longer deployment periods and more structured recovery of equipment at end of life. Providers that can document carbon impact and support reuse are taking a clearer role in those purchasing decisions.

For Sumillion, the award offers external recognition of a business model built around those themes. It believes the balance between cost, performance and sustainability will play a larger role in defining how organisations buy IT.

Basingstoke remains the company’s headquarters as it works with customers looking to modernise their technology estates while reducing waste through lifecycle management and procurement choices.

Nisa Local opened for Botley and Osney customers in November 2025, taking over the former Pickle and Lime grocery unit.

A planning application to Oxford City Council to create a single storey extension and steel security front shutter was refused in March 2026.

Proposed ground floor plan to extend new Nisan Local in Oxford’s Botley Road (Image: Virtus Design & Build)

You can submit your comments to the Government’s planning inspectorate by May 29.

The extension plans include new services such as an Evri parcel service and to provide two more Cook Frozen Meal freezers.

Also included is a move the Costa Coffee self-service machine to the front of the store, and to provide more floor space for Bake & Bite and the Oxford-based Natural Bread Company.

The Nisa store in Botley Road (Image: Ben Hardy)

Due to the scale, and appearance of the extension, the city council said it would result in a “harmful erosion” of the surrounding area and the building’s original character and proportions, which has already been previously extended.

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Now, the applicant, Mansi Jain Chowdhry, has submitted an appeal to the refused planning permission.

The applicant disagrees with the council’s assessment and believes the decision is “unsound” as the extension would not harm the character of the site or its surroundings but assist in strengthening a community facility.

The appeal statement says the extension is at the rear of the property so it does not alter the public-facing proportions, the ground floor retail space has bee in commercial use since the early 1900s.