A 5-minute automation self-assessment for back-office and professional-services teams.
Most businesses lose dozens of hours a month to work a computer should be doing. The hard part is not fixing it, it is seeing it, because the busywork grew one workaround at a time until it became invisible.
This is the same lens I use when I walk into a firm for an AI Automation Audit. Go through the 15 questions honestly. Give yourself the points in the box for each "yes." If you are not sure, the answer is usually "yes."
Part 1: Data re-entry (the silent hours)
2
Does anyone retype information from PDFs, emails, or one system into another?
2
Do you enter the same customer, vendor, or client data into more than one system?
1
Do people download data from one tool just to upload or paste it into another?
Part 2: Approvals and handoffs
2
Do approvals (invoices, time off, purchases, onboarding) live in email or chat instead of a tracked workflow?
1
Has work ever stalled because someone did not know it was waiting on them?
2
When a new client or employee is onboarded, does the same information get handed between people and re-keyed?
Part 3: Reporting
2
Does someone rebuild the same report (weekly, monthly) by hand from multiple sources?
1
Do leaders wait on a person to assemble numbers before they can see how the business is doing?
1
Have you ever made a decision on a stale number because the fresh one was too much work to pull?
Part 4: Reconciliation and accuracy
2
Does anyone reconcile two systems or spreadsheets line by line to catch mismatches?
2
Do billing or invoicing errors slip through and get caught later (or by the client)?
1
Is there a "person who just knows" how a critical process works, with little written down?
Part 5: The tells
2
Do you have a process everyone agrees is painful but "that's just how we do it"?
1
Have you looked at an AI or automation tool, felt it could help, but not known where to start?
2
If your busiest person took two weeks off, would routine work pile up because only they can do it?
Your score
Add up the points for every "yes."
0 to 6: Lean. Your back office is in good shape. A quick win or two, but automation is not urgent.
7 to 14: Leaking. You have several clear opportunities and are likely losing 20 to 40+ hours a month. This is the sweet spot where an audit pays for itself fast.
15+: Bleeding. Manual work is a structural drag, costing real money and risk (errors, key-person dependency). The first few fixes usually pay back in weeks.
Scored 7 or higher?
The next step is to put real numbers on it: how many hours, how many dollars, and what to fix first. That is what the AI Automation Audit does, for a one-time fixed fee that credits toward the build.