reaperinvest Process Automation Audit
When to Use This Skill
Use this skill when you need to:
- Identify which business processes should be automated first
- Estimate ROI for automating specific workflows
- Get tool recommendations for automating repetitive tasks
- Build a prioritized automation roadmap for a solopreneur or small team
DO NOT use this skill for building the actual automations, writing code, or configuring specific tools. This is for auditing and planning only.
Core Principle
AUTOMATE THE BORING, REPETITIVE, AND ERROR-PRONE — NEVER AUTOMATE WHAT REQUIRES JUDGMENT, CREATIVITY, OR HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS.
Phase 1: Process Inventory
Map all current processes before identifying automation candidates.
Required Inputs
| Input | What to Ask | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Business type | "What does your business do?" | No default — must be provided |
| Pain points | "Which tasks eat the most time or cause the most frustration?" | No default |
| Current tools | "What tools/software do you currently use?" | Google Workspace, basic accounting |
| Team size | "How many people handle operations?" | 1 (solopreneur) |
| Budget for tools | "Monthly budget for automation tools?" | $50-100/month |
| Tech comfort | "Rate your comfort with tech setup: low, medium, high" | Medium |
Process Mapping
For each process the user describes, document:
## Process: [Name]
**Frequency:** [Daily/Weekly/Monthly]
**Time per occurrence:** [X minutes/hours]
**Monthly time cost:** [Frequency x Time]
**Error rate:** [Low/Medium/High]
**Current method:** [Manual/Semi-automated/Fully manual]
**Steps:**
1. [Step 1]
2. [Step 2]
3. [Step 3]
GATE: Present the process inventory and confirm completeness before scoring.
Phase 2: Score and Prioritize
Evaluate each process for automation potential.
Automation Scoring
Score each process on four dimensions (1-5):
| Dimension | 1 (Low) | 5 (High) |
|---|---|---|
| Time savings | Under 30 min/month | Over 5 hours/month |
| Repeatability | Varies every time | Same steps every time |
| Error impact | Errors are trivial | Errors cost money or reputation |
| Ease of automation | Requires custom dev | Off-the-shelf tool exists |
## Automation Priority Matrix
| Process | Time Saved | Repeatability | Error Impact | Ease | Total | Priority |
|---------|-----------|---------------|-------------|------|-------|----------|
| Invoice sending | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 19 | HIGH |
| Social scheduling | 4 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 15 | MEDIUM |
| Report generation | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 11 | LOW |
ROI Estimate
For each high-priority process:
**Process:** Invoice sending
**Current time cost:** 4 hours/month
**Hourly value of your time:** $100
**Monthly cost of manual process:** $400
**Recommended tool:** [Tool name]
**Tool cost:** $30/month
**Setup time:** 2 hours (one-time)
**Monthly time after automation:** 30 minutes
**Monthly savings:** $350 (net of tool cost)
**Payback period:** Immediate
GATE: Present priorities and ROI estimates. Get approval before recommending tools.
Phase 3: Tool Recommendations
Match each automation opportunity with specific tools.
Recommendation Format
For each process, recommend 1-2 tools:
## Recommended Automations
### 1. [Process Name] — Priority: HIGH
**Recommended tool:** [Primary recommendation]
**Alternative:** [Backup option]
**What it automates:** [Specific steps from the process map]
**What still needs human input:** [Steps that cannot be automated]
**Setup complexity:** [Low/Medium/High]
**Monthly cost:** $[X]
**Integration with current stack:** [How it connects to existing tools]
Common Solopreneur Automation Stack
Reference these categories when making recommendations:
- Email/CRM: Follow-up sequences, lead tagging, welcome emails
- Invoicing: Recurring invoices, payment reminders, expense tracking
- Scheduling: Appointment booking, calendar management
- Social media: Content scheduling, cross-posting
- Documents: Proposal generation, contract sending
- Reporting: Dashboard creation, metric alerts
Phase 4: Implementation Roadmap
Deliver a phased plan for implementing automations.
90-Day Roadmap
## Automation Roadmap
**Month 1 — Quick Wins**
- [ ] Set up [Tool 1] for [Process] (estimated: 2 hours)
- [ ] Set up [Tool 2] for [Process] (estimated: 1 hour)
- Expected time savings: [X] hours/month
**Month 2 — Core Systems**
- [ ] Implement [Tool 3] for [Process] (estimated: 4 hours)
- [ ] Connect [Tool 1] to [Tool 3] via [integration]
- Expected time savings: [X] hours/month
**Month 3 — Optimization**
- [ ] Review automation performance
- [ ] Fix any broken workflows
- [ ] Identify next batch of processes to automate
- Expected total time savings: [X] hours/month
Maintenance Schedule
Recommend a monthly 30-minute automation check: verify workflows are running, review error logs, update any broken integrations.
Anti-Patterns
- Automating everything at once — implement one automation at a time. Stack failures are hard to debug.
- Automating broken processes — fix the process first, then automate. Automating a bad process makes bad things happen faster.
- Over-engineering — a simple Zapier workflow beats a custom-coded solution for most solopreneurs.
- Ignoring the human steps — every automation has handoff points where a human needs to review, approve, or intervene.
- No error handling — automations fail silently. Always set up failure notifications.
Recovery
- User has no budget: Recommend free tiers first (most tools have generous free plans). Prioritize automations that save enough time to justify paid upgrades later.
- User is not technical: Stick to no-code tools with visual builders. Avoid anything requiring API configuration.
- User automates something and it breaks: Help them identify the failure point, set up error alerts, and create a manual fallback procedure.
- Process is too complex to automate fully: Recommend semi-automation — automate the repeatable parts and keep human judgment for the rest.
- User has analysis paralysis: Pick the single highest-ROI automation and start there. One working automation builds confidence for the next.