Automation

The job you do the same way every week.

Most businesses have two or three of them. They are nobody’s favourite part of the week, they never make it onto a plan, and they quietly cost more than anything you would put in a budget. A computer can usually do most of the work.

Request an audit

Sound familiar

This is what it usually looks like.

None of these are unusual, and none of them mean anything is wrong with how you work. They are just the shape of a job that has outgrown being done by hand.

  • You type the same information into two systems because they will not talk to each other.
  • You send more or less the same email many times a month, with three details changed.
  • The first two days of every month go on assembling a report out of spreadsheets.
  • You chase clients for the same documents every period, and track who has replied in your head.
  • There is a job only one person knows how to do, and everything stops when they are away.
  • You pay for several tools that each do part of it, and you are the integration.
  • A spreadsheet quietly became a system the business depends on.

The audit

Start by finding out what it is actually costing you.

Before anybody builds anything, we work out which jobs are worth automating and which are not. You get it in writing, and it is useful whether or not you ever hire us again.

$500plus GST

Credited in full against the build if you go ahead within 60 days.

Work is contracted and invoiced through FileFlow Solutions Inc., which is where the engagement letter and the GST number come from.

What you get

  • The three jobs most worth automating, in the order we would do them.
  • How long each one takes you now, with the arithmetic shown.
  • What fixing each would involve, and a fixed price for it.
  • Anything you should buy off the shelf instead, named, with what it costs.
  • Anything you should leave exactly as it is.

Back to you within five business days of the call.

How it works

Four steps, and you can stop after any of them.

  1. 01

    You describe one job

    The form below takes about two minutes. One job you do the same way every week is enough to start — you do not need to have worked out the solution.

  2. 02

    We talk for about 45 minutes

    We go through how the work actually happens now: what arrives, from whom, in what shape, what you do to it, and where it ends up. We do not try to solve it on the call.

  3. 03

    You get it in writing

    A short written audit, back to you within five business days. Three jobs worth automating, what each costs you now, and what fixing each would cost.

  4. 04

    You decide

    The audit is yours either way, and it commits you to nothing. If you go ahead, the fee comes off the build.

What it costs after that

You get the number before the work starts.

We cannot quote a build before we understand the job, which is what the audit is for. But you should have a sense of the range before you spend anything, so here it is.

The build

From $2,500

Fixed price, quoted in writing before anything starts.

What moves the number

  • How many systems it has to touch, and whether they have a proper way in.
  • How many exceptions the job has — the “except when it’s a rush order” list.
  • Whether anyone outside your business needs to use it.
  • How much of the current process is written down versus in someone’s head.

Looking after it

$450 a month

or $4,900 a year, prepaid

A broken website is obvious. A broken automation is silent — it stops one night, and nobody notices until someone asks why the invoices went out late.

What that covers

  • Hosting, and the accounts the automation runs on.
  • Monitoring that it actually ran, so you hear it from us first.
  • Security and dependency updates, and key rotation.
  • Up to two hours of changes a month.
  • A stated response time when something stops.

Being straight with you

Most businesses do not need custom software.

Selling someone a project they did not need is a good month and a bad decade. So before we quote anything:

  • If a thirty-dollar-a-month tool already does it, we will name the tool and you can stop reading.
  • If a spreadsheet and half an hour of setup does it, we will say that too.
  • If the process changes shape every month, it is not ready to be automated. Automate it once it settles.
  • If there is no budget to look after it afterwards, we would rather not build it. Software that nobody maintains quietly turns into a liability, and that is a worse outcome than doing nothing.

Custom is worth it when you have outgrown the tools — when the thing you need does not exist, or the five things you pay for do not talk to each other and you are the one carrying data between them.

Request an audit

Tell us about one job.

Nothing is charged until we have spoken and you decide to go ahead. If it turns out you do not need us, we will say so on the call and there is nothing to pay.

Optional. Handy for the call.

In plain words. You do not need to know what the fix looks like — that part is our job.

A bit about that job

All optional, but they save a good chunk of the call — and they are most of what decides what a fix would cost.

Whatever the job passes through — Xero, QuickBooks, Outlook, a shared drive, a spreadsheet.

Optional. Saves us guessing at what the business does.

Required fields

Sending this does not commit you to anything, and nothing is charged until we have spoken. We use your details only to reply. See our privacy policy.

Not what you were after?

If you are looking for a website or the marketing to go with it, that is over here, and the ordinary enquiry form is on the contact page. You are also welcome to just email hello@clerke.io.

Clerke Technologies Inc. · Kelowna, British Columbia. Work is contracted and invoiced through FileFlow Solutions Inc. Whatever we build, the code and the accounts are yours.