The audit and roadmap is a short consulting engagement that answers one question: in what order should this business change its systems? We map how work flows today, estimate what each gap costs, and write a staged plan. It's business consulting about your office and marketing systems; we don't inspect, install or service anything on job sites.
Why order matters
Buying tools in the wrong order is the most expensive mistake we see. A shop adds online booking before it has a shared schedule, and the office now juggles a whiteboard and a booking calendar. Another shop buys review software before jobs are logged anywhere, so there's no reliable trigger to send the request.
The right order depends on the business, but the logic is consistent: first get one shared record of customers and jobs, then automate what happens around that record. The roadmap makes that logic specific to you.
What we look at
We trace a real job, start to finish, with the people who touch it:
- First contact. Where do calls, texts, emails, web enquiries and social messages land? How many go unanswered or unlogged?
- Quoting. Who writes quotes, how long they take, how they're followed up.
- Scheduling and dispatch. How jobs get onto the calendar and to the right tech.
- On the job. What gets written down, photographed or signed, and where it goes.
- Invoicing and payment. Time from completion to invoice, and from invoice to payment.
- After the job. Review requests, maintenance reminders, warranty records, repeat business.
- Marketing. Which sources produce leads, and whether anyone can tell.
What you receive
A plain-language document, typically five to eight pages:
- a one-page map of how a job moves today, with the leaks marked
- an estimate of what each leak costs per month, with the arithmetic shown
- a staged plan, usually three stages over three to six months
- for each stage: the goal, a short list of tool types, rough software costs, setup effort, who owns it inside your company, and how success will be measured
- risks and dependencies, including privacy and consent points under PIPEDA and CASL worth discussing with your own adviser
A worked example of the leak estimate
Imagine a heating and plumbing shop with four techs. In the audit we find:
| Leak | Evidence | Monthly cost estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Unreturned calls | About 20 a month go unanswered and never get a callback | 20 × 40% booking rate × $480 average job ≈ $3,840 |
| Slow quotes | Larger quotes take four days; about one in five goes to a faster competitor | Depends on volume; flagged for tracking |
| Late invoices | Invoices sent weekly; average 38 days to payment | Interest and admin time, plus cash flow pressure |
| No review routine | Five reviews this year from roughly 700 jobs | Lost trust on Google Maps; hard to price |
In that example, the roadmap would usually put call capture and a shared CRM first, invoicing second and review automation third. The numbers are illustrative, but your audit uses your own.
Timeline and how we measure the roadmap
Two to three weeks for the audit, then a review call to walk through the plan. We judge the roadmap by whether you can act on it: each stage has a named owner, a start date and two or three numbers to check after 60 days.
Mistakes to avoid
- Letting a vendor demo set the plan. Vendors show what their product does best, not what your business needs first.
- Changing everything at once. Crews tolerate one change at a time.
- Leaving the field crew out. If the techs weren't asked, they won't use it.
- No budget for training. Software costs are visible; training hours are not, and they matter more.
When the roadmap is done, the setup work is covered by our other services: paper to CRM, online booking, digital invoicing and review automation. See pricing for how engagements are billed.
Frequently asked questions
Do we have to hire you to carry out the roadmap?
No. The roadmap is yours. Some owners carry it out with their own office team, some use us for the setup work, and some do a mix.
How long does the audit take?
Usually two to three weeks, depending on how quickly we can talk to the owner, the office and a couple of field staff. The plan itself is a short document, not a binder.
We already bought software that nobody uses. Can this help?
Often, yes. Abandoned software is usually a setup or training problem, not a product problem. The audit tells you whether to fix the configuration, retrain, or move on.
Will you recommend specific vendors?
We give you a short list by function, with the trade-offs for your situation, and help you test them against your real workflow. You choose and sign with the vendor directly.