The free diagnostic
- One process. We sit with the people who do the work and map one process: who touches what, in which system, how often, and where it gets typed twice.
- What it costs. We estimate the cost with the same math as our cost calculator, on your numbers: items a week × minutes each × your loaded hourly cost × 50 working weeks.
- A live demo. We run the fix in a sandbox, with the decision-maker in the room.
- Your decision. A yes or no on the deep dive within two weeks.
Who qualifies
- 20 to 200 employees.
- Construction, logistics, light manufacturing, property management or staffing.
- Based in San Diego County.
- One process with real volume: roughly 100 or more items a week, or 10 or more hours of someone’s week.
- It runs on software we can connect to, such as QuickBooks, Procore, AppFolio or a payroll system.
- The decision-maker attends the demo.
- A yes or no on the deep dive within two weeks.
Not there yet? Start with our free course, Finding the Process Worth Automating, and the cost calculator. They walk you through the same measurement on your own.
The deep dive: $1,500
Two days with your team. $1,500, fixed, credited toward a build if you sign one within 60 days. You keep the written report whether or not you hire us for anything else.
- The baseline. We measure every relevant process: hours per week and cost per invoice, timesheet or work order, added up in dollars a year. For comparison, the average accounts-payable team spends $9.40 per invoice and the best-run teams spend $2.78 (Ardent Partners, 2025).
- Money you’re not collecting. Days from job complete to invoice, and billable items that slip through, such as change orders or detention charges.
- The plan. How the fix connects into your systems, and a fixed price for the build.
- The payback. Our target is 2–4x the build price, measured against the baseline. It’s a target, not a promise.
- If nothing is worth fixing, the report says so.
Example: a baseline and a payback
This is a worked illustration, not a client result.
- Baseline. 600 timesheets a week × 3 minutes each = 30 hours a week. At a $30/hour loaded cost, 30 × $30 × 50 working weeks = $45,000 a year.
- After the fix. The manual step drops to about 1 minute a timesheet: 10 hours a week, $15,000 a year. The difference is $30,000 a year.
- What it costs. Say the build is priced at $10,000 (an example figure; yours comes from your own savings), plus $300 a month to keep it running: $13,600 in the first year. The deep dive is credited toward the build, so it isn’t counted twice.
- Payback. $30,000 ÷ $13,600 = about 2.2x in year one, inside the 2–4x target. If it had come out under 1x, the report would tell you not to build it.
After the build runs, we measure again the same way, so you can see the real number next to the estimate.
After the deep dive
- Build: one fixed price, set by the savings. We price the build from the savings the deep dive measures, and aim for it to pay for itself inside the first year. That’s a target, not a promise. About two weeks, running in your accounts, and measured against the baseline afterwards. A 50% deposit puts it on the schedule.
- Keep it running: $300 or $500 a month. $300 gets a response the next business day. $500 gets one within four business hours. Anything that touches payroll or payments is on the $500 tier. Pay for the year up front and one month is free.
- The second fix. Once a quarter we measure what the fix saved, in dollars, and bring you the next process worth fixing with its own price. You decide whether to do it.
Questions
Why is it free?
Because seeing the fix work in a sandbox is the fastest way for both of us to know whether it’s worth doing. It costs us half a day, so we keep it to a few companies a month and to those that meet the list above. If the demo convinces you, the paid work starts with the deep dive.
What happens in the demo?
We run the fix on a sample document you bring, such as an invoice, a timesheet or a work order, and you watch it go through. It runs in our own environment, not on your systems, and we delete your document afterwards. Bring a sample that isn’t sensitive: no payroll stubs and no bank details.
Do you need access to our systems?
Not for the free diagnostic: we watch the work and use a document you choose to share. For the deep dive we may ask for read-only access to see how your data is laid out, through an account in our name that you can switch off. If a build follows, we’ll ask for the access that one fix needs, and nothing more.
What does a fix cost after that?
It depends on what the fix saves you. The deep dive measures the savings in dollars a year, and we price the build from that number as one fixed price, aimed at paying for itself inside the first year (a target, not a promise). You’ll know the exact price before you decide, and a 50% deposit puts the build on the schedule. Most builds take about two weeks. Keeping it running after that is $300 or $500 a month. We maintain it in your accounts: we watch it, and fix it when something upstream changes. $300 gets a response the next business day; $500 gets one within four business hours. Anything that touches payroll or payments is on the $500 tier.
Do you build custom software?
Yes, when the fix needs it: connectors between the systems you already use, dashboards that pull from them, and small web apps such as a certificate upload portal or an invoice approval screen. Same terms as any build: fixed price, runs in your accounts, you own the code.
Where do you work?
On site, anywhere in San Diego County.
What if we don’t qualify?
Take the free course Finding the Process Worth Automating and run your numbers through the cost calculator. If things change, talk to us. We don’t take medical, legal, or sensitive-data work.