Ben Brophy’s childhood ambition had been to be an entrepreneur. He landed on accounting because he saw it as the best vantage point to see how lots of different businesses actually run. A decade in practice followed before he went solo eighteen months ago. We sat down to talk about building his own tools, what AI can and can't do for clients, and why the phone still matters.
Getting into accounting
Ben's route into accounting was more instinct than plan. "From a very early age I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and in my head it was logical to look into accounting because I’d get to see loads of businesses and how they run."
After a decade in small to medium-sized practices, he made the jump to running his own. The transition has brought new positives and frustrations.
"I've loved the freedom to shape the business how I want it to be. There's many hats to wear, and that's an eye-opener. But on the flipside, dealing with HMRC can be very frustrating when you just want to get going."
What's changed, and what hasn't
For Ben, the shift has been toward accountants becoming business partners rather than compliance providers, something he sees AI accelerating rather than causing.
"You can build nearly anything now with AI. Historically some of the really big CRM systems could run into six figures. Now, over a weekend, I can build something that's going to do a job for me.” He’s cautious about not ripping everything out to be replaced with AI, but sees the impact as transformational nonetheless. “Just because I can do it doesn't mean I should, the most obvious red flag are the security issues, but it's such a transformation."
What hasn't moved, he says, is what clients actually want. "The client's main reason for coming to you has always been the same. They want someone a little closer to them, a little more open to working with them." Communication, more than price, is usually why clients switch accountants. He's also noticed that being reachable doesn't mean being needed constantly. "If a client feels like they can call you, they won't be calling you that often. If they're calling weekly, that business probably isn't going to last that long unless something drastic is happening."
Building his own tools
Ben runs ChatGPT and Claude side by side. "I burn through tokens, so having two subscriptions isn't a bad thing for me." Much of his day-to-day use is practical: working papers, a salary and dividends calculator he built himself, and small apps he's built purely to experiment, including a quick expenses game for his website. "It took about fifteen minutes to get live. It's a nice little gimmick to say, look, AI can do this, it doesn't have to be serious."
He's more cautious about clients doing the same. "I get people sending me stuff off ChatGPT saying, I've asked this, this is the answer, what do you think? A lot of clients are staying away from it, which is good, because for tax it's very hard to get the right answer from an LLM." Part of the issue, he thinks, is how affirming the tools can be. "It comes through to me like, this is a great idea, and I'm like, please do not do this in your company."
When it comes to vendors, he's looking for the same thing clients want from him: a real relationship, not just software. "If it's a tool that never talks to you, never integrates, and the roadmap doesn't change, I think they're at risk."
Looking ahead
Eighteen months in, Ben's past the honeymoon period. "I've really enjoyed growing, but I've got to a point where the next six months I need to push on, maybe look at hiring or outsourcing, and lean into what makes me a bit different."
What sticks with him most, though, is why the work matters. He recently took on a client whose mother did the bookkeeping until she broke her ankle. "They had no clue what to do, the whole business was about to stop. I was able to jump in and change their life for the better. She's at home resting instead of doing the books until midnight."
