How to run an automation audit of your own business

1. List the repetitive work

Ask each person who does admin, sales follow-up, bookkeeping or operations to write down the tasks they repeat every week. Keep it plain: what they do, which tools they open, and roughly how long it takes.

• Copying orders, leads or invoices from one system to another
• Building the same report every Monday
• Chasing people for documents, payments or replies
• Typing data out of emails, PDFs or forms
• Checking a spreadsheet for changes and telling someone

2. Measure each task

For each one, note four numbers: hours per week, how many people do it, what an hour of their time costs including overhead, and how often it goes wrong. The process cost calculator turns those into a yearly figure.

Rough numbers are fine. The point is to compare tasks against each other, not to produce a perfect figure.

3. Score what is automatable

A task is a strong candidate when most of these are true:

• The steps are the same every time, or follow clear rules
• The data already lives in software, not on paper
• The tools involved have an API, webhooks or a Zapier or Make connector
• A mistake is annoying but not dangerous, or can be checked by a person before it goes out

Tasks that need judgement on every case, or that touch money or legal documents, can still be automated in part: the system prepares the work and a person approves it.

4. Map the systems

Write down every app the top tasks touch and which way data should move between them. This is where most projects are won or lost: two systems that both think they own a customer record will fight each other unless one is chosen as the source of truth.

If you find a tangle of old Zaps or scripts nobody remembers setting up, list those too. Cleaning them up is often the first job.

5. Pick one and define done

Choose the task with the highest yearly cost that scored well on step 3. Write one sentence for what done looks like: "Every paid Shopify order appears in QuickBooks within ten minutes, with the right tax line, and failures email the bookkeeper." That sentence becomes the scope.

Start with one. A working automation in a few weeks teaches you more than a plan for ten.

When to bring someone in

If the top task crosses three or more systems, needs a custom integration, or has to keep running when nobody is watching, it is worth having it built and documented properly. That is what our Automation Audit and build work cover.

Updated 2026-10-23. General guidance, not advice for your situation; we scope each project in writing before any work starts.