What is a "process audit" for automation, and what does it tell you

Alexander Krastev · 2026-09-22

Before automating anything you want three answers: what can a machine do here, what would it save, and what will it cost. A process audit is those answers on one page.

How it works

Describe the work the way you would to a new colleague:

> "Invoices come by e-mail from about forty suppliers. Someone types the supplier, > number, date and total into a spreadsheet, files the PDF by month, and sends > anything over two thousand to the manager."

A photo of a diagram or a procedure document works just as well as typed words.

What comes back

its own.

run anything yet it stays empty instead of being invented.

Most reports leave this out; it is usually the most useful part.

• Which steps a machine can do, and in what order — so the first piece is useful on
• How many hours a month it saves, from the volumes you gave.
• What it would cost to run. This comes from your own real runs; if you have not
• What it would cost to build — you type that, because nobody else knows your rate.
• What the report could not work out. The questions still left for a person.

The button at the end

One click turns the report into a real workflow — but it arrives switched off, and a switched-off workflow refuses to run for real. You open it, read every step, change what is wrong, try it in a mode that touches nothing, and only then turn it on. That is enforced in the software, not written on a warning label.

The report downloads as a PDF and can be shared on a read-only link, for the person who decides but did not describe the work.

Trying it

Free at aikautomation.com — Process Audit in the menu, one paragraph, one minute. For your own computer or server you buy a licence and we install it for you. Get in touch.