One of the things that slows people down when they're considering automation is not knowing what to expect from the process. What actually happens in a discovery call? What does an "automation audit" mean in practice? What gets handed over at the end?
This post walks through exactly that — what each stage looks like from the client's side.
The discovery call (30 minutes, free)
The discovery call isn't a sales call. It's a diagnostic.
We ask you to walk us through the parts of your operation that feel the most manual — the things that take longer than they should, the tasks that fall through the cracks, the reports that require someone to spend an afternoon pulling data together.
We're listening for two things: where the highest volume of manual work is, and where the business impact of fixing it would be most significant. Those aren't always the same problem, and knowing the difference helps us prioritise correctly.
By the end of the call, you should have a rough sense of what's automatable and what isn't. If nothing you've described makes sense to automate, we'll tell you that too.
The automation audit (fixed price)
If the discovery call identifies real opportunities, the next step is an audit. This is where the actual scoping happens.
We spend time — usually a week to two weeks — mapping your current workflows in detail: what triggers each process, what happens in each step, what tools are involved, where the manual work occurs, and what the downstream impact of each step is.
The deliverable is a written document that lists every automation opportunity we've identified, ordered by priority. Each item includes: what the automation does, what triggers it, what the expected time saving is, and a rough effort estimate.
You can take that document and use it however you like — hand it to your own developer, file it for later, or use it to scope a project with us. It's yours.
Build and test (4–6 weeks typical)
When we build, we build to the specification from the audit document. Every edge case that we identified gets handled. Every failure mode has a defined behaviour — either it recovers automatically, or it alerts the right person so they can intervene.
We test against real data before anything goes live. That means running the automation against actual jobs, actual invoices, actual orders from your system — not synthetic test data. The goal is that by the time you see it, it's already been through enough repetitions to surface any issues.
Nothing goes live until you've reviewed it and confirmed it works exactly as expected.
Handoff and support (you own it completely)
The handoff is more than "here are the files." Every project includes:
- A written explanation of how the automation works, in plain language
- A Loom walkthrough of each automation from your team's perspective
- Documentation of what to do if something breaks — and who to call if it breaks in a way the documentation doesn't cover
- Full access to all the code, credentials, and infrastructure we've set up
We build so that your team can understand and maintain what we've delivered from day one. Ongoing support is available, but the goal is always that you don't need it.
If you're curious whether there's automation work worth doing in your business, the discovery call is the right starting point. It costs nothing and takes half an hour.