Should you automate that process?

Half the calls we take end with us saying “don’t automate this yet.” That surprises people. Here is the checklist we run before we quote anything — you can run it yourself in ten minutes.

01 — Does it happen at least weekly?

Frequency is the whole economics of automation. A task done 200 times a week pays back a build in months. A quarterly report, almost never. Count the repetitions honestly — including the times someone does it wrong and redoes it.

02 — Can you write the rules down?

If an experienced person can explain how they decide — “if the invoice matches a PO, post it; if not, flag it” — software can do it, and AI handles the messy middle: reading PDFs, interpreting emails, extracting fields. If nobody can explain the decision, fix the process before you automate it.

03 — Is the data reachable?

Automation needs a way in and a way out. Email inboxes, spreadsheets, and most modern tools are easy. A desktop app from 2009 with no export is not impossible — but it moves the quote. Know where your data lives before the call; it’s the first thing we’ll ask.

04 — What does a mistake cost?

This decides how much human review stays in the loop. A mistagged support ticket costs minutes; a wrong payment costs real money. High-stakes steps keep a human approval; low-stakes steps run straight through. Most good systems are 90% automatic with a small review queue — like the flagged invoice in our own pipeline.

05 — Will anyone own it?

Software needs one person on your side who cares that it keeps running — who reviews the flagged items and tells us when the process changes. Without an owner, the best automation quietly dies in six months. Name that person before you build.

The short version. Weekly or more · rules you can state · reachable data · known cost of error · a named owner. Score four out of five and it’s probably worth a call.

If you scored your process and it passed, the next step is the same one every project here starts with: a 30-minute call where you walk us through it. We’ll tell you honestly if it’s a no — that’s half the calls, remember.