Audit Checklist
A structured pass over how your business actually runs — lead flow, delivery, documentation, data and reporting.
Work through it honestly and it will tell you where to start. Work through it optimistically and it will tell you nothing.
Each section has a scoring line. The lowest-scoring section is where the money is, not the one that annoys you most.
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1 · Lead capture and response
- Every channel an enquiry can arrive through is listed
- Each channel is checked at a known frequency by a named person
- All enquiries land in one place regardless of channel
- There's a defined response time, and it's measured
- Nothing depends on one person being at work that day
- You can state last month's enquiry count without digging
- You can state how many became customers
- An unanswered enquiry becomes visible to someone within a day
Score: ___ / 8
Below 5 and you're losing enquiries you've already paid for.
2 · Sales and follow-up
- There's a defined sequence from enquiry to agreement
- Follow-up is triggered by something other than memory
- You can see every open opportunity and its stage
- Stale opportunities surface automatically
- Quotes and offers follow a consistent structure
- You know your typical time from enquiry to decision
- You know why the last five that said no, said no
Score: ___ / 7
3 · Delivery operations
- The steps from "yes" to "finished" are written down
- Each step has an owner
- Handoffs between people have a defined channel
- You know what happens when a handoff fails
- There's a definition of done
- Progress is visible without asking anyone
- A delayed job becomes visible before the customer notices
Score: ___ / 7
4 · Documentation
- Recurring processes are written down
- Procedures live in one known location
- They were updated in the last six months
- A new person could follow one without asking questions
- Each has a named owner
- Decisions that recur are recorded as rules
- Onboarding doesn't mean weeks of shadowing
Score: ___ / 7
This section is usually the lowest and it's usually the cause of the others.
5 · Data and tools
- You can list everything you pay for monthly
- Each tool is actually in use
- Customer information has one primary home
- You don't type the same thing into two systems
- Naming is consistent across tools
- Existing automations are documented
- You'd know within a day if an automation stopped working
Score: ___ / 7
The last one catches more silent failures than any other question here.
6 · Reporting
- You know your key numbers without building a spreadsheet
- Reports are produced on a schedule, not on request
- Numbers are read from systems, not retyped
- Someone looks at them and something changes as a result
- You can compare this month to the same month last year
Score: ___ / 5
7 · Dependency on you
- The business could run for a week without you
- For a month
- Someone else can answer customer questions correctly
- Someone else can do the thing only you do now
- Hiring someone made you less busy rather than more
Score: ___ / 5
This section is the summary of all the others. If it's low and the rest look fine, the rest aren't fine.
Reading your scores
| Section | Score | /Total |
|---|---|---|
| Lead capture and response | 8 | |
| Sales and follow-up | 7 | |
| Delivery operations | 7 | |
| Documentation | 7 | |
| Data and tools | 7 | |
| Reporting | 5 | |
| Dependency on you | 5 |
Start with the lowest percentage, with one exception: if Documentation is low, start there regardless. Every other section improves more easily once processes are written down, and several of them can't be fixed at all until they are.
If Reporting is your lowest and everything else is high — unusual, and the easiest to fix.
If Reporting is high and Documentation is low — you have accurate numbers about a process nobody follows consistently. The numbers are measuring variation, not performance.
What to do next
Pick the single process inside your weakest section that runs most often. Watch it happen three times. Write down what you see.
You'll find the first thing worth fixing before you finish writing.
Want this done properly?
A free systems audit covers all seven sections with access to your actual data, and tells you what to fix first.