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Process automation payback check

Pick one repetitive process and describe it: how often it runs, how long it takes, how stable it is and which systems it touches. The result shows the hours automation can realistically return each month, what they are worth at your own hourly cost, the one-off budget that pays back within a year, the approach that fits, and what has to be in place first. The figures come from your numbers, not from a price list.

ONE PROCESS, HONEST NUMBERS

Would automating this process pay back?

Answer for a single process: invoice entry, order confirmation, quote preparation, onboarding, report assembly. The check separates what rules can take over, what needs AI with review, and what should stay with people.

Step 1 / 3Volume
1 of 3
  1. Volume
  2. Process
  3. Systems
How much time it takes

Runs per month, minutes per run, people involved and what an hour costs you.

runs
min
people
EUR

How often do errors cause rework or chasing?

HOW IT CALCULATES

Your hours, standard shares, no price list

The arithmetic is simple on purpose, so you can check it.

  • Manual hours = runs per month × minutes per run. Rework adds a share on top, because automation returns error time too.
  • The automatable share depends on how rule-based the process is, how structured the inputs are, how many exceptions there are and whether systems can be reached. Judgment and documents lower it.
  • Monthly saving = hours returned × your hourly cost. The break-even budget is that saving over six and twelve months.
  • Under five hours returned a month, or judgment plus many exceptions, gets an honest 'not yet'.

WHY MONTHLY CARE

An automation nobody watches stops quietly

Systems change their APIs, people change the process, exceptions pile up.

  • Monitoring catches failed runs and stuck records the same day instead of at month end.
  • Exception review turns recurring special cases into new rules, so the manual share keeps shrinking.
  • Integration care keeps connections working when a system updates or a field changes.
  • A monthly report shows runs, hours returned and what was changed, so the saving stays visible.

HONEST LIMITS

What this check does not do

  • It does not price the build. The break-even budget is what the process can justify, not what we would charge; that depends on your systems and exceptions.
  • It uses standard automatable shares. Your process may do better or worse; the first conversation, reading real runs together, replaces the estimate with facts.
  • It counts time only. Faster handoffs, fewer errors reaching customers and data you can finally trust are real gains it does not put a number on.
  • It evaluates one process. Chains of processes and the order to automate them in are what the diagnostic is for.

Questions about the check

Why is there no price, only a break-even budget?

Because an honest price depends on your systems, access and exceptions, which a form cannot see. The break-even budget answers the question you actually have: is this process worth a build at all, and roughly of what size. We prepare a proposal after reading the process with you.

What if our process has many exceptions?

Then the stable core is automated and the exceptions are routed to a named person with the context attached. Over the first months, recurring exceptions become rules or an AI step with review, and the manual share shrinks. Many exceptions with judgment on top is the one case where we say standardise first.

Rules or AI, which is cheaper?

Rules, whenever the inputs are structured and the decisions are fixed. AI earns its place only where inputs are documents or free text, or where cases vary too much for rules, and then always with a person confirming the output. We tell you which one your process needs and why.

What happens to my answers here?

They stay in your browser until you choose to send the result through the contact form. We do not store questionnaire answers otherwise.