Melbourne CBD laneway with a passing tram

Melbourne and Victoria

AI consulting, automation and reporting in Melbourne

Solve8 is an AI consulting and automation team for mid-sized and enterprise Melbourne organisations in professional services, health, manufacturing, distribution and construction.

Plan a workshop in Melbourne

What to expect from an AI agency in Melbourne

Search for an AI agency in Melbourne and the results mix marketing studios, software houses, IT providers and consultancies. They overlap less than the labels suggest. A marketing-led agency will often begin with a chatbot or content, while a consultancy will often begin with the process that costs your finance or operations team the most hours.

Our team works the consulting way. In Melbourne that tends to mean month-end reporting across several entities, document handling in professional firms, and order and stock data in plants and warehouses from Dandenong to Laverton. We run discovery workshops in person, build remotely on your real data and agree a fixed fee for each phase before it begins.

Groups running several entities on Xero, MYOB or NetSuite are a common starting point. We build Power BI models that bring each entity's ledger together under written consolidation rules, so the board pack comes from one place and finance can rerun any month.

Where Melbourne teams lose the most time

Automated reporting across entities
Month end that depends on one spreadsheet and the person who built it.
Professional services
Law, accounting and engineering firms moving content between documents, practice systems and billing.
Health, aged care and disability
Care notes, incidents and funding claims passing through several systems.
Manufacturing and distribution
Plants and warehouses from Dandenong to Laverton where each site runs orders its own way.
Construction and infrastructure
Contractors on Victoria's Big Build projects rebuilding subcontractor and ITP records by hand.
Victorian public sector suppliers
Data flows documented against Victorian data security standards.

How to choose an AI consultancy in Melbourne

Eight things to test before you sign with any Melbourne firm, and where Solve8 stands on each.

Your code, your data
Ask for the repository, documentation and admin access to be yours from day one. That is how we hand over every build.
Data location and the VPDSS
Ask where data is stored and processed and how that maps to your contracts. We host in your own cloud or on your servers in Australia, and document data flows against the VPDSS for Victorian public sector clients.
A fee per phase and a way out
Ask for each phase to be fixed and approved separately. Ours are, and stopping after any phase leaves you with everything delivered to that point.
Software you can see running
Ask for a demonstration of live systems. We can show Carbonly.ai, our own ESG and emissions reporting product, and RootCauseAI, our AI investigation tool.
Multi-entity and ERP experience
Ask how they consolidate across entities and ledgers. Our engineers work with Xero, MYOB, NetSuite, Dynamics, SAP and Pronto, and write each consolidation rule down.
Workshops at your sites
Ask who comes to Melbourne and how often. Our consultants travel for discovery in the CBD and at plants and warehouses, and the visits are set out in the scope.
Support once it is live
Ask what happens when a supplier changes an invoice layout. We train your team and leave runbooks, and our managed AI service can monitor accuracy for you.
Room to disagree with vendors
Ask whether they will tell you to keep a system you already pay for. Our recommendations can, and the roadmap is yours to deliver with anyone.

AI agency, consultancy, IT provider or freelancer: which fits a Melbourne brief?

AI agency, consultancy, IT provider or freelancer: which fits a Melbourne brief?
	Where it fits	What to confirm first
AI agency	Marketing automation, chat assistants and branded AI content	How it will reach your ERP or practice system, and who maintains it
AI consultancy	Reporting, document and order processes across entities and sites	That the consultants who scope it also build and support it
IT managed service provider	Keeping devices, networks and licences running day to day	Whether AI projects get dedicated specialists or spare support hours
Freelancer	One well-defined script, report or prototype	Documentation, backup cover and what happens when they move on

Analyst desk with charts and a site plan at dusk

Process automation in Melbourne

Melbourne work usually starts with documents and reporting: extraction with a person checking, then Power BI models finance and operations both trust. Governance and data residency are settled before anything is built.

Process and workflow automation
Automated reporting in Power BI
System integration
AI strategy and governance

AI in Victoria: industries, rules and first projects

Financial and insurance services and professional services are the largest industries in the City of Melbourne by output. Greater Melbourne adds a large health and medical research sector, universities, food and advanced manufacturing in the south-east and north, and logistics around the Port of Melbourne, Australia's largest container port. Contractors on the Big Build carry heavy reporting and subcontractor workloads.

Private organisations work under the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles. Victorian public sector bodies, and contractors bound to them, work under the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014, with the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner overseeing the Victorian Protective Data Security Standards. Health information in Victoria is also covered by the Health Records Act 2001, and construction payments by the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2002.

Melbourne teams usually automate reporting first: consolidated month-end, climate data for AASB S2 disclosures, and board packs that refresh without a spreadsheet owner. Document work in law and accounting practices and order entry in distribution follow close behind.

How we work with Melbourne teams

Scope
A free 30-minute review and a fixed price for phase one, confirmed before work starts.
Workshops in Melbourne
Our consultants travel to run discovery with the people who do the work.
Remote between visits
Build cycles run remotely on your real data, inside your systems.
Run alongside your team
Staff review each output until the agreed accuracy target is met.

Questions

Should we hire an AI agency or an AI consulting firm in Melbourne?

Hire an AI consulting firm when the work touches operations, finance or reporting, and an AI agency when it is a self-contained marketing or chat project. Agencies often focus on chatbots and marketing automation, while a consulting firm starts from the operational process, proves accuracy and supports the system afterwards. Solve8 works the consulting way, with workshops in Melbourne and build work run remotely.

Is there an AI agency in Melbourne that works on site?

Several firms offer on-site work in Melbourne, and Solve8's consultants travel from the Brisbane region for discovery workshops, site walks and handover. We have no Melbourne office, so visits to CBD firms or to plants in Dandenong and Laverton are planned into the scope. Our team works on the same clock as Melbourne outside daylight saving and one hour behind during it.

How much does an AI consultancy charge in Melbourne?

An AI consultancy in Melbourne should give you a fixed fee per phase after discovery, because the effort depends on what it finds in your systems. For Melbourne groups the biggest drivers are the number of entities and ledgers, how many plants or sites are in scope, data quality and any VPDSS obligations. Our fees are agreed in writing before each phase starts, and you can stop after any phase.

What should a Melbourne organisation ask an AI consultancy before signing?

Ask who owns the code, where your data will be processed, what each phase costs and what you keep if you stop. Then ask to see a system the firm has running in production and to meet the engineers who will build yours. Our full checklist of twelve questions is in the buyer's guide linked from this page.

Is robotic process automation still worth it for Melbourne manufacturers?

RPA still suits stable, rule-based screen work, such as copying orders between an ERP and a customer portal. Where inputs vary, like supplier documents or customer emails, AI extraction with a person checking holds up better. Most Melbourne plants and distributors end up using both, connected to the same ERP.

Can you automate month-end reporting across our Victorian entities?

We automate month-end reporting across Victorian entities with Power BI models that refresh from each entity's Xero, MYOB, NetSuite or ERP ledger and its operations systems. Consolidation rules and every measure are written down, so finance can rerun the month without waiting on whoever built the original workbook.

Do you work with Victorian Government agencies and their suppliers?

We work with Victorian public sector bodies and the suppliers who serve them, under the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 and the Victorian Protective Data Security Standards, which often bind suppliers by contract. Solve8 documents data flows, hosting and review points at the start.