For creative agencies that run on Paprika
Ask Lesley answers questions about budgets, hours and costs from your Paprika data. It gets timesheets finished and turns supplier invoices into coded, checked entries. Nothing is posted until someone on your team approves it.
Founding places for UK agencies open once our pilot checks are complete. We set up every agency ourselves, so there are five.
What’s left on the Brightside budget?
£18,420 of the £64,000 budget is left on BRS014.
Not included yet: 3 supplier invoices awaiting approval, £4,180.00
SourcesEstimate BRS014 · Time to 26 Sep · Purchase ledger
Example with fictional figures
every figure has a source
What Lesley does
Lesley takes on the work that fills an agency finance week: questions from the team, unfinished timesheets and supplier invoices.
Questions
Account directors and producers can ask about a job’s budget, hours, third-party costs, invoices and payments without waiting for a report. Each answer shows where its figures came from, when they were read and what’s missing. Ask in your Ask Lesley workspace, or from ChatGPT or Claude through a connection your agency controls.
Example · fictional data
How much have we spent with freelancers on Kestrel?
£12,480 over 6 invoices · 1 awaiting approval
How many hours has the studio put into Kestrel this month?
286.5 h across 9 people · 14 h not yet posted
Which Northwind invoices are still unpaid?
2 invoices · £14,300.00 · oldest 47 days
Timesheets
A reminder only tells someone their timesheet is short. Lesley works out what’s missing, then messages the person in Google Chat with a suggested fix from their calendar. They confirm or change the hours. Only the week they confirm is posted to Paprika, and the whole week is checked afterwards.
Example · fictional data
Hi Sam. Your week ending 26 September has 30 of 37.5 hours. Thursday is empty, and your calendar shows the Brightside shoot.
Add 7.5 hours to BRS014 for Thursday?
nothing posts until Sam says so
Supplier invoices
Suppliers keep emailing your finance mailbox. Lesley reads each invoice, matches the supplier and suggests the job, nominal code and VAT. It checks the totals and looks for duplicates. Your finance lead reviews the exact entry beside the original PDF. Once it’s approved, Lesley posts it to Paprika, then reads back the supplier, reference and totals to check they match.
Example · fictional data
FIELDWORK STUDIO
Invoice INV-2231
12 September 2026
Illustration, Brightside campaign
fieldwork-inv-2231.pdf
Proposed entry
How it works
Our team configures every pilot agency with your finance lead. Here is what happens, in order.
We connect Paprika with a dedicated login your agency owns, plus your finance mailbox and Google Workspace. Xero too, if your ledger lives there.
With your finance lead we map jobs, nominal codes, VAT, approvers and leave codes, and agree what stays manual.
Lesley prepares answers, timesheet fixes and invoice entries. Your team reviews and approves each one.
Each month you get a report of what Lesley handled, what was corrected and how long approvals took. We only talk about time saved once we have measured it with you.
Controls
A finance team can only rely on an assistant it can audit. Every change Lesley makes is proposed, approved, posted and then checked.
An approval covers the exact supplier, job, amounts and destination. Change anything and it needs approving again.
The original email and PDF stay attached to every invoice, fingerprinted so you can tell they haven’t changed.
After each post, Lesley reads Paprika again and compares totals, references and hours with what was approved.
Credit notes, foreign currency, mixed VAT and anything unclear wait for a person, with the reason shown.
Lesley never pays suppliers or moves money. A posted invoice is a bookkeeping entry, and paying it stays with you.
Each agency’s records are separated at the database level, and sign-in uses your own Google Workspace accounts.
Made for Paprika
Lesley was built alongside an agency that runs on Paprika, so it knows jobs, estimates, time processing and the purchase ledger. Paprika stays your system of record. Lesley reads from it and writes only what your team approves.
Ask Lesley is independent. It isn’t made, sold or endorsed by Paprika Software.
Pricing
Your finance team shouldn’t need a sales call to find out what something costs. Founding places open once our pilot checks are complete.
credited to year one on an annual plan
Founding pilot · 90 days · up to 150 people
£2,500fixed fee, plus VAT
Set-up by our team, all three jobs and a monthly report of what changed. We agree what success looks like before we start. If it isn’t working at day 90, you stop with nothing more to pay.
from £750 a month
Priced by the number of people at your agency, never per seat. Founding agencies get 20% off their first year and keep their price for two years.
The pilot is £4,000, on the same terms. Groups with several agencies are priced with you.
Half an hour of feedback a month, permission to measure what changes, and a reference if it works.
Questions
Waiting list
Tell us a little about your agency. We’ll be in touch when founding places open, starting with a 30-minute walkthrough on a demo agency in Paprika.