Workflow Audit Checklist: Find Where Manual Work Costs You

A workflow audit finds the places where people are doing work a system should do: rekeying between systems, typing documents into the ERP, rebuilding reports by hand. This checklist is the self-serve version of the audit we run for manufacturers and distributors. Work through it with your team, add up the hours, and you will know where to start.

22 checks in 6 areas Free PDF, no signup Takes about 30 minutes
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How to Use It

Walk through each section with the people who do the work, not just the managers. For every item you check, note roughly how many hours a week it costs. The total is what manual work is costing you, and the biggest line is usually where to start.

To price a checked item: hours a week × 52 × a fully loaded hourly rate. One person spending 90 minutes a day moving data between systems is roughly 375 hours a year; at $30 an hour that is about $11,000, for one person on one seam.

1. Handoffs between systems

  • Someone types the same order, customer or item into more than one system.
    Count the systems and the people. Each rekeyed field is a future mismatch.
  • Data moves between systems by export, spreadsheet and import.
    Note how often, who does it, and what happens when they are out.
  • Sales or customer service calls the office to check order status, stock or pricing.
    Count the calls in a typical day; each is a missing integration.
  • Nobody can say which system is right when two disagree.
    Every dataset should have exactly one owner system.

2. Documents arriving by email

  • Vendor invoices are opened, matched to POs and keyed into the ERP by hand.
    At 3 to 5 minutes each, 150 to 200 invoices a week is 15 to 20 hours.
  • Customer purchase orders arrive as PDFs, email text or photos and are keyed as sales orders.
    At 10 to 15 minutes an order, 200 orders a week is more than a full-time job.
  • Supplier order confirmations and ship notices are read and filed manually, or not at all.
    Look for promise dates that change without anyone noticing.
  • Signed BOLs and PODs are hard to find when a dispute comes up months later.
    Time how long it takes to produce one from last quarter.

3. Orders and customer communication

  • Order acknowledgments are written by hand from ERP data.
    Count them per week, and how many go out late.
  • Missing-information emails to customers are written by hand, or skipped under deadline.
    Skipped questions become guessed options and returns.
  • Partial shipments and backorders cause double billing or missed invoices.
    Check credit memos issued for billing errors last quarter.
  • Quotes depend on one engineer or one spreadsheet.
    Note how long a quote waits when that person is out.

4. Data quality

  • The customer list has duplicates, and nobody trusts it.
    In one consolidation project, 34% of customer records were duplicates.
  • Inventory counts in the ERP regularly disagree with the shelf.
    At 92% accuracy on $5M of stock, about $400K of inventory is wrong in the system.
  • Item master data (units, descriptions, part numbers) is inconsistent.
    Inconsistent part data breaks every automation built on top of it.

5. Reporting

  • Weekly or monthly reports are built by exporting to Excel.
    Count the hours, and how stale the numbers are by the time they are read.
  • Meetings argue about whose number is right.
    Each KPI needs one written definition and one source.
  • Nobody looks at the dashboards you already have.
    A dashboard needs one owner and one question it answers.

6. Systems, integrations and IT

  • An integration or automation fails silently and people find out days later.
    Every sync should retry, log and alert someone.
  • You learn about server or disk problems when users complain.
    Proactive monitoring catches most issues before anyone notices.
  • Backups exist but a restore has not been tested recently.
    A backup you have not restored is a hope, not a plan.
  • Reps answer calls without seeing the customer’s account or open orders.
    Phone to CRM and ERP integration puts it on screen before they answer.

What to Do with the Results

Rank the checked items by hours a week. The top one or two are usually worth fixing first, and they tend to fall into a few patterns:

Or book the free audit and we’ll run it with you: 30 minutes, and you get a prioritized list of fixes ranked by ROI whether or not you hire us.

Workflow Audit FAQ

  • What is a workflow audit?

    A structured review of your workflows, systems and data to find where manual work, errors and disconnected systems cost time and money, ending in a list of fixes ranked by ROI.

  • About 30 minutes with the people who do the work. Estimating hours for each checked item takes a little longer and is worth it.

  • We run the same review with your team, look at your actual systems and data, and give you a prioritized list of fixes ranked by ROI. No cost, no obligation.

Let Us Run the Audit with You

Book a free 30-minute workflow audit. We’ll go through your workflows and systems with you and hand you a ranked list of fixes. No obligation.