The automation assessment: what is measured and what you receive afterwards

An automation assessment is the first step we propose to any business in Mallorca considering automating processes or bringing in AI agents, and it is also the one that raises the most questions: what exactly happens during the initial assessment, what is measured, what you take away at the end and why it costs a fixed €1,500. This article explains it step by step, just as we do it in a hotel in Alcúdia, a clinic in Palma or a boatyard in Port d'Andratx, so that you know in advance what to expect and can decide whether it is worth it for you.

Why start with an assessment rather than a proposal

When a business owner calls us they usually already have an idea of what they want: "a chatbot for WhatsApp", "invoices that enter themselves", "a report every morning". Sometimes that idea is the right one. Quite often, when we sit down with the team, another task appears that consumes three times as many hours and that nobody had mentioned because it was taken for granted.

Making a proposal without measuring first carries two risks: automating what is visible rather than what weighs most, and pricing blind. The assessment exists so that the first project is the one that pays for itself soonest, and so that its scope and price are fixed before work begins.

What happens during the initial assessment

The assessment is carried out in person at your business, normally in a single morning. We work with three profiles: whoever runs the business, whoever does the administrative or customer-facing work day to day, and whoever looks after the technical or IT side (the management software, the website, the access credentials), whether that is someone on your team or the outside provider who maintains it for you. The person doing the daily work is the most important one in the session, because they know the shortcuts and the workarounds that are written down nowhere. The technical person keeps the plan from proposing something that cannot then be connected.

The running order is as follows:

• First hour: a walk through the business and the tools you use. Booking system or till, email (Google Workspace or Microsoft 365), Holded or another management package, spreadsheets, WhatsApp, shared folders. We note which information lives where and how it moves from one place to another.
• Second and third hours: an interview with the person who does the work. We ask them to show us, on screen, how they handle a booking, an invoice, an enquiry, a quote. We time it and count: how many times a day, how many minutes each time, what goes wrong. We also ask what happens in high season and who does it when that person is away.
• Final hour: a check against management. We put the figures collected on the table and confirm they match the owner's perception. There is almost always a surprise.

We install nothing and touch no system during the assessment. We only look and measure.

What is measured

The main output is a map of the company's repetitive work with hours per month per task. For each task we record:

• What it is and who does it.
• How many times a month it occurs, in low season and in high season.
• How long it takes each time.
• Which systems are involved.
• What errors or delays it causes when it piles up.
• Whether it can be fully automated, partly automated, or is better left as it is.

That produces a list ordered by hours. In a business of 10 people it is common for the top five tasks on the list to add up to the equivalent of one person's full working day, spread across several people. That figure is what allows us to calculate how much each automation saves and how quickly the investment is recovered.

What you receive afterwards

Within a week of the session we deliver a short document, generally six to ten pages, in four parts:

1. The map of repetitive work, with hours per month per task and per person, exactly as we measured it.
2. The three automations that pay for themselves soonest, in order. For each one: what it does, which systems it connects, what we would build (a bespoke automation, WhatsApp Business API, a managed agent), a fixed price within our published range (€3,000 to €6,000 per automation, or from €500 per month for a managed agent) and a timeframe in weeks.
3. What we recommend leaving as it is: tasks that look automatable but should not be touched, because they require judgement, change too often or the saving does not justify the cost.
4. Data considerations: which customer information would be involved, where it would be hosted (always in the European Union) and what would need to be documented.

The document is yours. You can use it to hire us, to hire another provider or to do the work internally. It is written so that any technician can understand it.

What it costs and how it is deducted

The assessment costs €1,500, a fixed price that does not vary with company size within the range we work with (3 to 50 people). If you then contract the first automation with us, the full €1,500 is deducted from that first project. If you contract nothing, you keep the document and the figures.

We set it up this way for a simple reason: we do not want to sell an automation that does not pay for itself. If the assessment concludes that your business does not have enough repetitive work to justify a project, we say so in the document, and it has happened.

How to prepare for the session

To get the most out of the session it helps to have to hand:

• Access (with you present) to the main tools, so we can see them on screen.
• A typical high-season month and a typical low-season month in mind, with approximate figures for bookings, orders, appointments or quotes.
• The availability of the person who does the work day to day, without interruptions for two hours.
• A list of the things that annoy you: what gets delayed, what gets forgotten, what gets lost in August.

That is enough. We draw out the rest during the session.

Frequently asked questions

Is the assessment useful if my business is very small?

Yes, from three people upwards. In a business of three or four the map is shorter and the figures are clearer, and the conclusion is often a single automation, or even a configuration of existing tools that needs no project at all. We say so either way.

Can it be done remotely?

We prefer to do it at your business, in Mallorca, because seeing how the team works in its own setting gives information a video call does not. For businesses with several sites or with part of the team working remotely, we combine an in-person session with online interviews.

What if I already have some automation in place?

We include it in the map. We review what it does, whether it still works, who maintains it and whether it should be extended or replaced. It is common to find workflows in Make or Zapier that someone set up two years ago and that nobody now knows how they work; the assessment documents them.

If you want to know how many hours a month go on repetitive work in your business and which three automations would pay for themselves first, book your initial assessment. Request an assessment