Business & Technology
Ravical launches Workspace to back value-based pricing
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.
SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO
News Editor
Luma has opened access to the Uni-1.1 API, extending its unified intelligence model to developers.
The API uses a REST interface built on what Luma describes as a single model for text and image generation, rather than separate systems combined at inference. The model is decoder-only and autoregressive, with text and image tokens handled in one sequence.
The release is another product step for Luma as it expands its presence in Europe. The company says it has a 200-person office in London, building on an expansion announced late last year.
Backers include Humain, AMD and Andreessen Horowitz. Luma positions Uni-1.1 as a system that can reason through visual and textual instructions in the same pass before producing an image.
Developer focus
Luma is targeting developers building creative and design workflows. One intended use is handling briefs with multiple constraints, including spatial logic and composition, within a single generation process.
Another feature is continuity across a series of outputs. Developers can submit up to nine reference images to maintain identity, style and composition across campaigns, reducing shifts in visual style between generations.
Luma has also introduced a modify-image endpoint for localised edits. It lets users request changes such as background swaps or lighting adjustments in natural language rather than through more detailed prompt construction.
According to Luma, the API generates an image in about 31 seconds. It says the service is designed to offer lower latency and lower cost than comparable models, while supporting multiple languages for broader distribution.
Competitive market
The launch comes as developers and creative software groups seek more reliable ways to generate and edit images through APIs. Many existing tools rely on separate language and image models linked together, an approach that can create inconsistency between the instruction stage and the final output.
Luma argues that its architecture addresses that issue by treating text and image tokens as part of one sequence. In practice, the system is designed to resolve structure and creative intent before image generation begins.
Luma also cited benchmark performance in support of adoption. It says Uni-1 leads RISEBench in spatial logic and ranks first on Human Preference Elo, though the announcement did not include further detail on testing conditions.
Industry users
The API is already in production or committed with several creative and developer platforms, according to Luma. It named Adobe, Envato and Freepik among creative industry users, alongside Fal and Krea on the developer side.
Those names suggest Luma is seeking to place its model within both established design software ecosystems and newer AI-native tools, giving it routes into professional creative teams as well as independent developers building image-generation and editing products.
The market for generative AI interfaces is increasingly crowded as model developers try to differentiate on quality, speed, controllability and price. In this release, Luma is emphasising consistency across campaigns, natural-language editing and a unified model design that it says avoids the weaknesses of stitched systems.
Its London operation may also matter as AI companies compete for engineers and customers in Europe while facing closer scrutiny over deployment, copyright concerns and the commercial use of generated media. A larger local presence can support hiring, partnerships and product support in the region.
For now, the immediate significance is that Uni-1.1 is moving from more limited availability to broader developer access.
Iguanas Holdings Limited, which runs 47 Las Iguanas restaurants across the country, has “fallen into financial difficulties”, the company’s lawyers told the High Court on Wednesday (May 6).
They explained the casual dining sector in the UK had suffered “substantial problems” in recent years.
Despite Iguanas Holdings and parent company Big Table doing “their best to meet these problems”, trading conditions remain “very challenging”.
Iguanas Holdings’ barrister, Ryan Perkins, said these challenging conditions led to the company losing nearly £10 million in the 2025 financial year.
The company has only been able to continue trading due to support from Big Table, Mr Perkins added.
Now, if a restructuring plan isn’t approved, the company will have “no funding to continue trading” and could fall into administration.
This would force the closure of all 47 Las Iguanas restaurants across the UK.
Full list of Las Iguanas stores at risk of closing
The full list of Las Iguanas stores at risk of closing is:
Iguanas Holdings’ proposed “turnaround strategy”
A ‘convening hearing’ took place in London on Wednesday, with Mr Perkins requesting permission to hold meetings with creditors to vote on a restructuring plan for Iguanas Holdings.
In written submissions, the barrister said the proposed scheme will wipe out debts of around £37 million owed to one of its creditors, and will see Big Table inject £3 million into the company as part of a “turnaround strategy”.
The company will also request a reduction in rent at some locations, and a “compromise” on some debts owed to landlords.
If this restructuring plan was not approved, Mr Perkins said Iguanas Holdings would have “no choice” but to enter administration.
In a ruling, Mr Justice Hildyard said he was “content to approve what is proposed” and allowed the company to take the plan to creditors at meetings scheduled for May 28.
If they vote in favour of the scheme, the plan is due to return to the High Court officially approved by a judge at a ‘sanction hearing’ scheduled for June 5.
Other UK companies that have closed or entered administration/liquidation in 2026 (so far)
It has been a rough start to 2026 for the UK high street, with several other retailers entering administration and others announcing widespread store closures.
Major high street retailers LK Bennett and Claire’s both closed all their stores in April, having previously fallen into administration.
Other retailers have been forced to close stores this year, including:
Several other companies have fallen into administration, including:
Meanwhile, four UK travel companies have closed in 2026:
Luxury UK holiday company Salamander Voyages also shut down recently after entering administration.
EcoJet Airlines, billed as “the world’s first Electric Airline”, entered liquidation earlier this year after just three years, resulting in the cancellation of all planned flights.
What has a nose, wings and runs off of hydrogen? Ecojet 😎 pic.twitter.com/y8QGiBdFe2
— ecotricity (@ecotricity) July 17, 2023
UK delivery company Yodel is set to be phased out over the coming months after being acquired by InPost.
It’s also been reported that Morrisons is looking to sell some of its in-store pharmacies as it continues to cut costs.
It’s not been all bad news for the UK high street, with several major brands announcing new store openings for 2026, including Aldi, M&S, and Superdrug.
Is there a Las Iguanas restaurant near you at risk? Let us know in the comments below.
Victoria Beckham spoke to Emma Grede, a founding partner of Kim Kardashian’s Skims, on her Aspire YouTube podcast.
She told the businesswoman that her daughter Harper, 14, had to go to a dermatologist a a couple of years ago after using too many products, causing bad skin.
She said: “She used to have beautiful skin, but like all young girls she was enticed by beauty brands and she was putting a lot of product on her face that was not suitable for her skin and consequently ended up going to see a dermatologist because her skin was really, really bad.”
Victoria’s ‘mini-me’, who wants to follow in her footsteps, watched her experiment with makeup, even watching her create her own line.
Victoria said she also struggled with her skin, including suffering with child, teen and adult acne, jokingly saying: “Every acne under the sun, I’ve been there.”
For years there’s been hype around the possibility of Harper setting up her own beauty line, with Victoria calling her a “little entrepreneur”, after putting together a presentation about launcher her own skincare line.
However, Victoria said she doesn’t want her to go through the skin troubles she did.
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