Back office and admin support for UK businesses
You need the work done. Not necessarily someone to do it.
Tell us what is taking up your week. We put a named, trained team behind it for one fixed monthly fee, from £400 a month.
We are not a marketplace and we are not a broker. We recruit, train and supervise our own team, which is why the same people are still on your account next year.
One invoice
Everything you choose on a single monthly bill, agreed in advance.
Flexes with the work
Busy season, quiet month. Scale up or down on a month's notice.
A named team
The same people every week, each with a documented backup.
Measured
Turnaround, accuracy and on-time delivery, reported monthly.
Why we exist
We did not set out to sell this. We built it for our own businesses, and then our clients started asking who ran it.
Kim and Kev have each spent years running businesses where the admin outgrew the founder. Both went the same route in the end: recruiting, training and managing remote staff in the Philippines directly, rather than renting hours from an agency. That meant learning the parts nobody warns you about, including how to test for the work rather than the CV, how to write a process down so it survives a change of person, and how to keep quality steady across a time difference.
It worked well enough that clients kept asking to be introduced to whoever was doing it. After enough of those conversations, we stopped explaining it and started offering it properly, as a company, with contracts, insurance and someone accountable.
Co-founder
Kev Orme
Client relationships · systems, operations and content
Kev has run every single function Aurora sells, in his own businesses, with his own money at stake. He owns an education business and a production studio, and consults on operations, systems and AI. Between them that has meant an inbox and a diary someone else had to hold, a customer service operation, a sales process, invoicing and credit control, hiring and managing staff across two countries, and building the systems and automation underneath all of it himself.
He also does the two things most back office providers never think about: building a culture people stay in, and building a community and a brand around a business rather than bolting marketing on afterwards. He makes the video and the content himself, so he knows what it costs to keep any of it running week after week.
Why that matters to you. The person setting up your account has done the job you are handing over. When he tells you what to hand over first and what to keep, it is from having got it wrong himself, not from a playbook.
Co-founder
Kim
HR, payroll and compliance
Kim runs an HR practice alongside Aurora, which is the reason this company can promise compliance rather than just admin. Contracts, handbooks, policies and employment compliance are led by her, as is payroll and finance sign-off. She sets the standard the team is trained to, and anything that carries a consequence is reviewed by her before it goes anywhere.
She is also the person who will tell you, early and plainly, when something needs an employment solicitor instead of us.
Why that matters to you. Most providers at this price hand you a template off the internet. Yours is written by someone qualified, and reissued when the rules change rather than when you notice.
Aurora is a young company and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. What is not young is the way we do this, which both of us ran privately for years before we put a price on it.
Two ways to work with us
Most people arrive by one of two doors.
The service is the same underneath: trained people, documented process, measured output. What changes is who we answer to.
For business owners
Managed back office
You run a business and the admin is eating the week you meant to spend growing it.
- Inbox, diary, bookings and enquiries
- Customer email, live chat and follow-up calls
- Invoicing, credit control and supplier processing
- HR: contracts, handbooks, policies and records
- New employer set-up, for a first hire or a first handbook
- Recruitment, onboarding and right to work checks
For payroll bureaux and practices
White-label capacity
You have the clients and the sign-off. You need processing capacity that does not disappear in April.
- Gross to net across all pay cycles, to your templates
- FPS and EPS prepared for you to submit, in your software
- Bank reconciliation, ledgers and VAT preparation
- Surge cover for year end and the April rate change
We work under your brand and inside your systems. Nothing is ever submitted to HMRC in Aurora's name, and we never approach your clients.
One thing we do not do. Content, social media and newsletters are not part of Aurora. That work sits with The Belonging Studio, Kev's other business, where it is done properly by people who do only that. If it is marketing you are after rather than back office, start there instead and we will not waste your time.
What it costs
Four levels, priced on hours rather than cleverness.
The level follows how much work there is. Skilled work is priced separately and openly, so you can see exactly what you are paying extra for and why. The figures below are starting points; the estimator will give you a closer number in about a minute.
A sole trader or a small team where the admin has quietly become an evening job.
- Inbox, diary, bookings and enquiries
- Documents and data entry
- CRM and pipeline upkeep
- One named person, with a documented backup
A business with customers to answer and invoices to chase, where one person cannot hold all of it.
- Everything in Essentials
- Customer email support and enquiry follow-up
- Invoicing, chasing payments and supplier invoices
- Recruitment, onboarding and right to work checks
- Monthly report on turnaround and accuracy
A business running several functions at once, where the work is now more than one person can carry.
- Everything in Growth
- Cover across more than one area at the same time
- Expenses and reconciliation
- HR records, personnel files and holiday tracking
- A named account contact in Edinburgh
You already know roughly what you need, and it is a team rather than a person.
- A small pod built around your business
- Roles specified with you, not picked from a list
- Skill surcharges priced into the quote rather than added on
- Kim or Kev on the account from day one
Skilled work, added on top: Live cover +£150 · Specialist finance work +£150 · HR and compliance +£195 · Payroll and pensions +£250 a month. Take the work away and the surcharge goes with it.
Not sure which one you are?
Tick off what is actually taking up your week and the estimator will show you the level, the hours and an indicative monthly figure. No email address, no form, no waiting for someone to ring you back.
Skilled work
Why some work costs more.
A trained payroll processor or a qualified HR practitioner costs us noticeably more than a general administrator. Pretending otherwise would mean either quietly cutting corners on who does your work, or charging every client for a skill most of them never use. So we put it on the invoice as its own line.
- +£150Live coverChat and follow-up calls need someone online during your working day, so this sits with the evening shift pod.
- +£150Specialist finance workExpenses and reconciliation need a more experienced person than general admin, and a second pair of eyes on the output.
- +£195HR and complianceLed in Edinburgh by Kim, who runs an HR practice, so your contracts and policies are written by someone qualified rather than copied off the internet.
- +£250Payroll and pensionsProcessed by the trained payroll pod and checked by a second person before anything reaches you.
Surcharges are monthly and sit on top of your level. On a Custom build they are priced into the quote instead.
The numbers
Judge it on the hours you actually get back.
A salary is not the cost of a person. The cost is everything attached to that salary, divided by the hours genuinely delivered once holiday, sickness and cover gaps are taken out.
Employing an administrator
Illustrative, based on a £28,000 salary.
Aurora, full-time cover
Fixed monthly fee, invoiced in advance.
We would rather be straight with you than win the argument. On these numbers Aurora is cheaper than employing someone, but not dramatically so, and anyone showing you a saving of half should be asked how. The stronger case is the one that does not show up in a rate: you are not recruiting, you are not carrying holiday and sickness, you are not the cover when someone leaves, and you can change the shape of it on a month's notice. If the only thing you need is a lower hourly rate, we are probably not the answer.
And about National Insurance. Employer NI on a £28,000 salary is roughly £3,450 at 2026/27 rates, but the Employment Allowance is worth up to £10,500 and cancels that bill entirely for a lot of smaller employers, so we have left it out of the headline rather than quietly inflating the comparison. Employment figures assume around 1,690 productive hours a year after holiday and average sickness; the Aurora figure assumes around 1,950 hours delivered, because the cover does not stop. We will run your actual numbers before you commit to anything.
Who does the work
Edinburgh for your account. The Philippines for the work. Named people in both.
Most companies selling this service are brokers. They hire remotely, never meet anyone, and quietly replace your person every few months. We are structured the opposite way round, and we would rather show you the whole thing than have you find out later.
Edinburgh, Scotland
The people you deal with
You are not handed to an account manager you have never spoken to. The two people who own this company are the two people on your account.
- KimCo-founder · HR, payroll and complianceRuns an HR practice alongside Aurora. She leads contracts, handbooks, policies and employment compliance, and signs off payroll and finance. The day to day administration sits with the trained team; the wording that matters is reviewed by her.
- KevCo-founder · client relationships, systems and operationsYour first conversation, your onboarding, and the person you ring when something needs to change. Runs an education business and a production studio and consults on operations, systems and AI, which means he has personally run the inbox, the customer service, the sales, the invoicing and the hiring he is now taking off your desk.
The Philippines
The people who run the team
Our operations directors live there. They are not a partner agency or an outsourced recruiter. They employ, train and supervise the staff who do your work.
- GrahamOperations Director · PhilippinesRecruits in person, runs the practical testing, and holds capacity and delivery supervision day to day.
- BethOperations · PhilippinesOnboarding, team management and the daily supervision that keeps standards steady once someone is on your account.
Supervised, not subcontracted
Nobody joins your account without being tested on the actual work first, in person, by someone who will still be managing them next year.
Pods, not individuals
Your work sits with a small specialist pod, so you get a named primary and a named backup who already knows your account. Holiday and sickness stop being your problem.
Documented, not improvised
Every process we run for you is written down and owned by the UK company. If a person changes, the method does not, and neither does the accuracy.
First-time employers What Kim does if you have just taken on staff Nobody hands you a list when you hire your first person. This is the list.
Kim goes through what you already have and tells you where the gaps are before you commit to anything: employment contracts and statements written for how your business actually works, a staff handbook in plain English that your team will actually read, the policies you are legally required to hold and the ones you will be glad of later, right to work checks and an onboarding pack that stands up to scrutiny, and personnel files, holiday and absence records kept the way an inspector expects to find them.
Then she keeps it right. Contracts and policies are reviewed and reissued when the rules change rather than when you notice. Your people paperwork gets an annual check against where the law has got to. You get guidance on probation, absence, performance and leavers before you act rather than after, with the letters produced properly so the file tells the same story as the conversation.
Where the HR work stops. HR support is one part of what we do rather than the whole service, and we are not a law firm. If a situation needs an employment solicitor, or you are heading for a tribunal, Kim will tell you that early and help you brief them properly.
Aurora is a UK company, contracted in the UK, and your agreement is with us in Edinburgh. The time difference is ours to manage rather than yours to think about, and it means work handed over at the end of your day is often done before the next one starts. We are comfortable working with clients in other time zones on the same basis.
Due diligence Data and accountability Data processing agreements, transfer mechanisms, insurance, the four eyes rule and the written service level. Nine answers, already prepared.
- A written data processing agreement, with Aurora named as an approved sub-processor
- An International Data Transfer Agreement covering the Philippines leg, plus a completed impact assessment
- Work carried out in a UK-hosted secure environment, with nothing downloaded to local machines
- No client data on personal devices, personal email or personal cloud storage, ever
- Professional indemnity and errors and omissions cover, with liability capped at fees paid
- A four eyes rule: nothing leaves us without a second person checking it
- A written service level covering turnaround, accuracy and how problems escalate
- Confidentiality and data protection agreements signed before anyone starts
- HR and employment compliance led by a qualified practitioner in the UK, with a documented escalation route to employment law
If you are a practice putting us through due diligence, we can send all of this as a single pack rather than making you ask for it piece by piece.
Where our work stops. We process to your instruction, and you keep sign-off on anything that carries risk. HR and employment compliance is the exception: that is led by Kim, who is qualified to lead it, and it is advice rather than filing. We are not a law firm, we do not represent clients at tribunal, we do not give tax or financial advice, and we do not handle client money. Where something needs a solicitor or an accountant we will say so plainly instead of having a go.
Getting started
About three weeks from first conversation to running quietly in the background.
Handing work over badly is worse than not handing it over at all, so we would rather take a fortnight to learn your business properly than start on Monday and guess.
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Week one · 30 minutes
A conversation with Kim or Kev
Not a sales call with a stranger. One of the two founders, going through what actually takes up your week, what it costs you now, and which parts are worth handing over first.
You leave with a written breakdown of what to hand over and what to keep, whether you go ahead with us or not.
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Week one · a couple of sessions
We learn how your business actually runs
The bit most providers skip. We go through the systems you use, the way you speak to your customers, what a good week looks like, what has gone wrong before, and where you want to keep the final say.
You leave with a scope in writing: exactly what we will do, what we will not touch, and what still comes to you for sign-off.
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Week two
We write the processes and set up access
Every task becomes a documented process owned by the UK company, not a note in one person's head. Access is set up with the permissions you are comfortable with, the data agreements are signed, and your service levels are agreed on paper. If you employ anyone, Kim reviews your contracts, handbook and policies at this point.
You leave with your own process documentation, which is yours to keep even if you leave us, and a written list of any gaps in your people paperwork.
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Week two to three
Your team is trained, and runs in parallel
Graham and Beth train your named primary and their backup on your documented processes. They then run alongside you on real work before touching anything live, with Kim checking the output. Nothing goes out unchecked, and nothing goes live until you say it is right.
You meet the people who will be doing your work, by name, before they start.
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From week three, ongoing
It runs, and you can see that it is running
Named contacts and agreed response times. A monthly report on turnaround and accuracy, so you are judging us on evidence rather than on how the last email felt. A review with Kim or Kev to change what is not working and add what is.
You keep sign-off on anything that carries risk, and a month's notice to change the shape of it.