1,000 Hours Saved: Shannon and Ryan Smit’s Accounting SOP Automation Story

Your team is sitting on a pile of work that takes minutes to do, happens dozens of times a day and lives entirely in somebody’s head. You know it should be handed to a machine. You also know nobody has ever written down how it is actually done.

In this episode Dave sits down with Shannon Smit, who runs the award-winning accounting firm Smart Business Solutions on the Mornington Peninsula and her son Ryan, the firm’s Systems Champion. Their SOP automation story runs in one direction only: map the process, pressure-test it, then build the bot. One documented task handed Ryan back the best part of a day a week. The order they worked in is the whole lesson and it is the part most businesses skip.

In This Episode

• 00:45  Inside Smart Business Solutions, 20 people across accounting, advice and lending
• 01:45  What a McDonald’s job at 14 taught Shannon about running a practice
• 04:45  How a change of degree turned into the firm’s Systems Champion role
• 10:45  The “what if” question that makes a system survive real life
• 14:45  Why you cannot automate a process you have not mapped
• 15:30  The file note bot that took eight hours a week off one person
• 17:00  “So what do I do now?” Handling the fear automation creates
• 23:00  The real return on systemising and the risk most owners ignore
• 25:15  Ryan’s advice for anyone starting out as a Systems Champion
• 29:45  When a business is ready to start and which process to pick

👤 Today’s Guests, Shannon & Ryan Smit

Shannon Smit founded Smart Business Solutions on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula just over 18 years ago and has grown it organically to more than 20 people, covering accounting, financial planning and mortgage broking. She started at McDonald’s at 14 and has never really stopped systemising since. The firm was named Multiservice Firm of the Year at the 2024 Australian Accounting Awards.

Ryan Smit is her son and the firm’s Systems Champion. He was 18 months into an aviation degree before switching to accounting and he now works three days a week at the practice while studying the other two. He maps how the team actually works, then looks for the parts a machine can take over.

Website: smartbusinesssolutions.com.au

📋 SOP Automation Runs on Documentation, Not Software

Based on the interview with Shannon and Ryan Smit, Smart Business Solutions.

Most businesses meet automation the wrong way round. They see a tool, they get excited, they try to point it at the messiest job in the office. Then it does not work and the conclusion is that the technology was overhyped.

Shannon and Ryan did it in the opposite order and their firm is one of the few that has real numbers to show for it. This is what that order looks like in practice.

The Firm That Systemised Long Before It Automated

Smart Business Solutions is an accounting, financial planning and mortgage broking practice based in Mornington. Shannon set it up just over 18 years ago and grew it organically to more than 20 people, without ever buying another practice.

Her instinct for systems goes back to a McDonald’s job at 14 and nine months, where everything was systemised by default. What turned that instinct into a habit was reviewing her team’s work. Everyone finishes the same degree and everyone still has their own way of preparing a set of financials. Shannon wanted the checks to be the same every time, which meant writing the process down. Her point about newly qualified accountants is worth sitting with: being qualified does not mean you know how this firm prepares financial statements.

So the accounting side was documented more than 10 years ago, one piece at a time. Her own words on how: systemise this part by the end of the week, the next part next week. The admin team took theirs on themselves. The office question became “Is it in systemHUB?” and the office instruction became “Update systemHUB.”

How Ryan Fell Into the Systems Champion Role

Nobody planned this. Ryan was 18 months into an aviation degree when he told his parents he wanted to switch to accounting. He came in on a support basis and within weeks he was telling people their processes made no sense. Shannon’s response was the one that created the role: if it makes no sense, go and ask how we do it, then update it.

What made him right for it was not knowledge. It was the opposite. He did not know how any of the work was done, so he had to ask and his questions were the ones experienced people never think to answer. You have skipped a step. Where is that document kept? Where do I find this? That is what the Systems Champion role looks like day to day and it is why the job so often suits a junior rather than a department head.

“You just gotta find someone who’s asking all the questions for every part.”
Ryan Smit, 11:00

Shannon adds the other half of it. A good champion starts with the outcome, not the steps: what is the end goal of this system, what does good look like, why are we doing it that way. Then they work backwards through the steps to get there.

The Four Steps, in the Order They Actually Happened

Pulled out of the conversation, their route to SOP automation is simple enough to copy. The order is not negotiable.

1 Capture How the Work Is Really Done

Ryan sits with the person, follows them through the task and writes it down as they go. Not the version in the manual, the version that happens.

2 Ask What If Until the Exceptions Are In

This is the step most people skip. Ryan’s observation is that teams document the way it goes most of the time, then put that in systemHUB as though it were the whole job. Every time someone makes a decision he asks why they made it and what else they could have chosen. The exceptions are what make a system usable by somebody who has never done the task.

3 Automate the Worst Use of Someone’s Time

Only now does a tool enter the picture. The firm has used Power Automate, ChatGPT and Copilot, with Copilot favoured partly for the security side. The order matters more than the tool, which is the case for documenting a process before you automate it.

“You can’t automate something that you don’t fully know or have it mapped out.”
Shannon Smit, 15:00

4 Put the Freed Capacity Somewhere Useful

Shannon is doing more business consulting with clients, which is what she says they need most in the current economy. The hours did not disappear. They moved.

The File Note Bot and What It Actually Saved

Financial planning carries heavy compliance obligations and every client call has to be file noted. At Smart Business Solutions that meant recording the same note in three separate systems: FYI, XPlan and Dash. Three to five minutes per note, roughly 20 notes on a client day, usually pushed down to whoever was in an admin role. Ryan was spending eight to ten hours a week on it, batched into a day and a half doing the previous week.

Because the process was documented, he could hand it to a bot. The bot still takes three to five minutes per note. The difference is that it works through the queue on its own while the humans do something else.

His first reaction to building it is the honest bit and it is the reaction every owner should expect. So what do I do now? Have I just reduced my own hours and my own wage? Shannon’s answer was that there was plenty more work and plenty more to automate.

Getting the Team Past “Is This Replacing Me?”

Change management was the hard part and Shannon does not pretend otherwise. Everyone was trained. Two people effectively opted out after about six months and said plainly it was not for them. The rest of the team came with her and the reason is in how she framed the question.

She did not announce an automation programme. She asked people which part of their job was the most boring and tedious, the part they hate doing and offered to get rid of it. That is a very different conversation and it is most of the work in getting a team on board with systems.

“We’re not trying to replace jobs, and I don’t think AI is replacing people’s jobs. Someone using AI will replace someone’s job.”
Shannon Smit, 18:00

She is upskilling the whole practice, admin through to marketing and treats the training as an investment rather than a cost. The way she does the maths is worth borrowing. If you do not train them, they keep doing manual work that could be automated, they enjoy the job less and you risk losing them to a firm that does invest. Every time someone leaves it takes months to bring a replacement up to speed.

The Return Nobody Puts on the Spreadsheet

Dave puts the question every owner asks: what is the return on systemising a business? Shannon, who is a numbers person by trade, does not answer with hours.

“The biggest risk a business owner has is a key person that they are heavily reliant on leaving tomorrow.”
Shannon Smit, 23:00

Someone who has been with you 10 years walks out and if nothing is written down you go backwards for as long as it takes to rebuild what was in their head. That is the key person risk sitting quietly in most firms. Her standing instruction to her team is the cleanest test of whether you have solved it.

“You need to systemise and document everything so that when you’re on leave, no one needs to call you.”
Shannon Smit, 23:45

There are two more returns behind that one. Documented work lets you promote people, because the job they are doing today can be handed down rather than carried with them. And when the time comes, a systemised practice is worth more, for the same reason a McDonald’s franchise sells: the buyer is buying the system. Shannon tells clients to start with the end in mind, which is the case for building a business you could actually sell, whether or not you ever do.

When to Start and What to Document First

Shannon’s answer on timing is earlier than most people expect. The moment you have one employee, because the alternative is expecting them to read your mind. Most people want to do a good job. Your systems are what let them.

On which process to pick, she runs the same test every time: which one, if I fixed it, would give us the biggest value. Sometimes that is client experience, like onboarding. Sometimes it is time and cost. Sometimes it is a new compliance requirement she has no choice about. Then she does one at a time. If you are stuck at the first move, this is the same logic behind choosing which systems to document first.

Ryan’s version, from the other side of the desk, is to start small. Not the biggest process in the business. A 30 minute daily task, written up properly, then tested by handing it to someone who has never done it and seeing whether they can.

The 20 minutes Ryan used to spend on a file note was never a technology problem. It was a documentation problem with a technology payoff waiting behind it. Pick the job your team complains about most, sit with the person who does it, write down what actually happens including the bits that go wrong. Your business is not broken. Your systems are and they are fixable this week.

Want to see where this starts? Watch Dave walk through capturing your first business process, the step that has to happen before any of it can be automated.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you have to document a process before you automate it?
Shannon’s position is that you have no choice. You cannot automate something you do not fully know or have mapped out. The file note bot only existed because the process behind it was already written down and agreed, which meant the rules the bot needed were already decided.

What does a Systems Champion actually do all day?
Ryan spends his time asking other people how they do their work, then writing it into systemHUB on their behalf. He expected the job to be about refining systems. In practice it is mostly extraction: following someone through a task and asking why at every decision point.

Does the Systems Champion need to know how to do the work?
No. Shannon argues it actually helps if they do not. Ryan did not know how anything was done, so he had to ask and the questions he asked were the ones people who know the job never think to answer. What he needed was a methodical approach and the willingness to keep asking.

How do you stop your team assuming automation will cost them their job?
Ask which part of their job they find most boring and tedious, then take that part away. Shannon trained the whole practice and was open that the goal was capacity, not headcount. Two people still opted out after about six months, which is worth expecting rather than treating as a failure.

Which process should you systemise first?
Shannon picks the one that would deliver the biggest value if it were fixed, whether that is client experience, time saved or a compliance change she has to make anyway. Then one at a time. Ryan suggests starting smaller still, with a daily 30 minute task and testing it by handing it to someone who has never done it.

When is a business big enough to start systemising?
As soon as there is one employee. Shannon’s point is that the moment someone else is doing the work, expecting them to guess your steps is unfair to them and expensive for you. Most people want to do a good job and the system is what lets them.