How to audit your workflows for automation, and pick one to fix this week.

The usual path is a demo, a seat, a "try ChatGPT" memo. Six weeks later the week looks the same. The miss is not the model. You never named the work that should disappear.

This is a workflow audit you can run on a whiteboard. Or skip the whiteboard and score one real workflow in five minutes at the free audit.

Why teams skip the audit and buy software anyway

Buying a tool feels like a decision. Naming a workflow feels like homework. Vendors also sell the tool first, so the market trains you to shop.

That is how you end up with another login and the same chasing, filing, reporting, or inbox pile. The person is still the bottleneck. The P&L does not move.

The useful question is not "where could AI help?" It is "which workflow can we hand over?" Which workflows absorb well, and which don't is the field guide to that distinction. Below is how to run the test on your own list.

What a workflow audit is (and is not)

A workflow audit is a score of one repeating piece of work: can software do the production, and is it worth it?

It is not:

• a security scan of an n8n JSON file
• an AI Act or compliance checklist
• a 40-item automation backlog
• a promise that AI will transform the business

One workflow. One score. One next step.

Inventory the work that eats the week

Ask the people who actually do the week: what did you do yesterday that you also did last Tuesday?

Write the loops. Any category. Sales admin, onboarding, reporting, inbox, stock, quotes, month-end, hiring screens, tenant packs, routine filings. Filing, chasing and reconciling show up a lot. They are examples, not a sector brief.

Keep the list short. Five is enough. The loudest complaint is often not the most expensive loop.

Score each one on five signals

Same five as the free audit and the absorbability field guide. Score each from 1 (weak) to 5 (strong).

1. Repeatability

Same shape, different details. If a new junior could follow a one-page checklist, this is high.

2. Already separable

A junior, a bureau, or a VA could own it today. If the work has already left the strategic core, it can move further out. The live audit labels this "already outsourced."

3. Clear right answer

A complete pack, a correct number, a sent follow-up. A tight band of acceptable outputs.

4. Outcome-measured

Someone can tell if it was done well. Without a measure there is no way to run it unattended.

5. Margin

Enough hours or cost that removing it matters. A small corner task is not worth the squeeze.

Read the score

Count how many signals score 4 or 5. That count is the verdict, the same shape as the free audit:

• Four or five: ready to absorb.
• Two or three: absorbable with a wedge. Start narrow.
• One or zero: judgment work. Leave it.

Do not automate strategy, relationship-carrying work, or anything where being wrong is expensive and undetectable.

Cost it in hours, then stop guessing

Hours per instance × instances per week × loaded hourly cost. Crude is fine. You are looking for a number large enough to act on, not a finance model.

Illustrative only, not a client figure: 45 minutes × 20 times a week × €40/hour is about €600 a week.

One tool this week vs a full assessment

The free five-minute audit does this scoring against one real workflow in your business, by voice or by text. It asks four follow-up questions, names the most absorbable loop, estimates the weekly leak, and ends with one tool to try this week. There is also a server-rendered text version if you would rather fill a form than talk.

If the free pass finds something worth a wider map, The Assessment is the next step: €499, a 60-minute conversation, five to seven prescriptions across the business, credited 100% against any build. Take the free audit first. The paid piece is only useful once you have named one loop.

Do-not-automate list

Leave these alone, even if they eat the week:

• You cannot describe it twice the same way. If two people would write different checklists, the shape is not stable enough to hand over.
• No checkable right answer. Open judgment with no way to tell whether the output was good.
• A silent error would be expensive. If being wrong is costly and nobody would notice in time, keep a person on it.
• The work is really a relationship. The customer is buying attention, not a completed pack.
• A pile of tasks pretending to be one workflow. Split the pile before you score it. One loop, or you are scoring a job description.

Pick one this week

Five loops on a page. Score them. Cost the winner. Then run it through the free audit and try the tool it names. That is the first move most businesses skip, and the reason the week looks the same in six weeks.