What a $999 process assessment actually buys you

Most "free automation audits" are a demo with a discovery call stapled to the front. You leave with a quote, not an asset. FIO's assessment is priced at $999 precisely so it can be the opposite: a paid engagement whose output is worth keeping even if you never spend another dollar with us.

Here's what's actually in it.

1. Your processes, in writing

The assessment is built around structured interviews — 45 questions across six departments, refined with every engagement. We're not asking "what are your pain points?" and nodding. We're capturing how work actually moves: who touches it, what systems it crosses, where it waits, what happens when the one person who knows it is out.

Every process captured becomes a step-by-step SOP. For most companies under 100 people, this is the first time their operation has existed anywhere outside of people's heads.

2. Findings you can check

Findings are stated with their evidence: "Renewal data is re-keyed three times between the carrier portal, the AMS, and the billing spreadsheet — we watched it happen in the ops interview." You review every finding before it's final. If we got something wrong, it comes out.

3. Dollar figures computed, not invented

Every cost in the deliverable is computed from numbers your team provides — volumes, minutes, loaded labor rates. The math is deliberately boring, and that's what makes it defensible in front of whoever signs your checks. Processes we can't measure honestly are marked unmeasured. There are no fake zeros and no borrowed benchmarks in a FIO report.

4. A roadmap with priorities, not a catalog

Recommendations come from a vetted tool catalog we maintain — roughly sixty tools that have survived our own quality gate — matched against the language of your interviews. Each recommendation names what it replaces, what it should conservatively save, and where it sits in the build order. A roadmap that recommends everything recommends nothing.

The fee credits. Here's why.

The $999 credits in full toward any build work you choose from the roadmap. That's not a discount trick; it's an alignment mechanism. We only profit from the assessment if the roadmap is good enough that you want something on it built — so the roadmap has to be good.

Who shouldn't buy this

• Companies that already have current, written SOPs and a costed automation backlog — you've done the work.
• Teams looking for someone to validate a tool they've already bought — the numbers might not cooperate.
• Anyone expecting the roadmap to promise 100% savings — we cap estimates conservatively, and some processes should stay manual.

If that's not you, the assessment page explains how it starts. One email; the interviews usually finish inside two weeks.