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01The way in · From £1,995, single site

Audit and Assurance.

Two days walking your operation with the people who actually do the work. By the Friday you have everything worth fixing, in order, with the hours a year each one costs you now and the price to fix it. Run by an IIA-certified internal auditor, not a vendor selling you a build.

Quick answer

A paid, independent audit of how your business actually runs and where AI and automation would earn their place. Two days on site with the people who do the work, a written report by the Friday, and a 45-minute walkthrough call the week after. There are four ways in, all from £1,995: the operations route for a business asking where its time is going, the AI route for a business asking what its AI use is exposing it to, the assurance route for a business that has already turned things on and wants independent eyes over whether they are safe, compliant and owned, and the health check route for a business whose automations are still running but nobody can say how well. Anything that is none of those is scoped from a conversation. The build, if you want one, is a separate decision.

Before you pick

You do not need the words for it.

Here is the whole test. If the job has to be created fresh every time, that is AI. If it is the same thing every time with a different name in it, a confirmation email, a reminder, a monthly report, that is automation. They cost different amounts and they fail in different ways, which is the only reason the distinction matters.

If something is already running in your business, you are probably further along than you think. The common shape is a working front end, a sign-up that sends a confirmation and a reminder, and nothing after it. The half that is missing is usually the half that makes the money.

You do not have to know which one you are before you speak to us. Read the four below, and if none of them is obviously you, that is a normal answer.

Start here

Four ways in.

Same two days, same report discipline, same price floor. What changes is the question we come in to answer, and it is worth getting that right before anybody spends anything. Pick the one that sounds most like you rather than the one you think is technically correct.

Automation · the Operations Audit

The operations question

“Where is our time going, and what should we fix first?”

For a business with a lot of admin and no clear view of which part of it is worst. We walk the whole operation with the people who run it and rank everything worth doing by the hours a year it currently costs you. AI appears only where it is genuinely the right answer, and often it is not.

You leave with everything worth doing in priority order, the biggest items fully worked and priced, and a first move for the next 30 days.

AI · the maturity route

The maturity question

“How are we actually using AI, and what is it exposing us to?”

For a business where tools are already in use, often unofficially, and nobody has a clear picture of what is running, what data is going where, or what happens when it gets something wrong. Scored across six dimensions with evidence, not opinion.

You leave with a maturity position across six dimensions, the risks named plainly, and a direction for the next six to twelve months.

Assurance · the independent review

The assurance question

“We have already turned things on. Is any of it safe?”

For a business that is live and wants independent eyes over it: whether the AI and automation running today is safe, compliant and genuinely owned by you rather than by a vendor. It is the same discipline an internal auditor brings to any other function, applied to the part of the business nobody has audited yet.

You leave with the risks and control gaps named plainly, who owns each one, and what to fix before it matters.

Health check · the running review

The health question

“It is all still running. Nobody can tell me how well.”

For a business whose automations have been going long enough that nobody watches them any more. Vendors change an interface on a Tuesday, a certificate expires, a workflow built for 500 runs is quietly firing 12,000. The dashboard says green either way.

You leave with every live automation graded, the ones quietly failing named, and a fix and a cost against each.

Not sure which one you are? Most people are a bit of two of them, which is fine. Say so on a call and we will tell you, including when the answer is that you do not need any of them yet. Anything that is none of the four is scoped from that same conversation. There is no charge for it and nothing attached to it. Whichever route we agree is written into the terms of reference before anything starts, so nobody ends up with a report that does not match what they bought.

What actually happens

Two days on site. A report by the Friday.

The shape is the same whichever way in you take. Only what we are looking for changes. David runs both days himself: it is not delegated and there is no team of associates behind this.

Day one

We follow the work, not the org chart

A short opening with everyone involved, then sessions with the people who actually do each job, following one piece of work from the first enquiry through to the money arriving. Not department by department, because the friction almost always lives in the handoffs between them. The arithmetic gets done in the room, out loud, while the person who does the job is standing there.

Day two

The gaps, then we rank it with you

The morning takes whatever was missed on day one and the back-office work nobody thinks of as a process: reporting, reconciling, chasing, month end. The afternoon is a working session where the whole long list goes on the table and gets put in order together. You will move things and disagree with some of it, which is the point: you know the business and we have had two days.

By the Friday

The report, then a call

Everything worth doing in priority order, with the biggest items fully worked and priced. A first move for the next 30 days. A page showing exactly how every number was calculated so you can check it. Then a 45-minute walkthrough call the week after, included in the fee and booked before we leave site.

What you get

A document that earns its fee.

A written report you could hand to any builder, and a page telling you what not to build. The ranking below is illustrative, but the arithmetic behind it is the real method: times per week, time each, people affected, across a working year.

Everything worth doing, in order Illustrative
01Quoting and estimating312 hrs/yr
02Supplier invoices and coding208 hrs/yr
03Timesheets and scheduling156 hrs/yr
04Chasing late payment104 hrs/yr
05Month-end reporting78 hrs/yr
Top three fully worked and priced Every number shown and checkable
  1. 01

    The picture

    How the work actually runs, end to end, with the friction points numbered. The page that shows we understood the business before we recommended anything to it.

  2. 02

    Everything worth doing, in order

    Not a top three with the rest left out. Every opportunity we found, ranked by the hours a year it currently costs you, with the total at the top.

  3. 03

    The biggest items, fully worked

    A page each on the top three: what it is costing now, what the fix looks like, the price to build it, and the payback in weeks.

  4. 04

    Leave this alone for now

    A full page of the things we would not build, each with the reason and the number that failed. Nothing over a 26-week payback is recommended.

  5. 05

    Your first move, and the 30 days

    One page on where to start, in your words rather than ours: the last question of the ranking session is which one feels like the place to begin.

  6. 06

    Assumptions and every calculation

    Its own page, listing every figure and where it came from. It is what lets us say check our arithmetic and mean it.

The page that earns the fee

A list of what we would not build.

We do not recommend anything that takes more than 26 weeks to pay for itself. Where we find something that fails that test, it goes on that page with its number rather than quietly into the list. We also will not build or change anything during the two days, however small and however tempting, because it sets the wrong precedent and it eats the report.

An audit that recommends everything is a sales document. That page is how you can tell this one is not.

The particulars

What it costs, and what it is not.

£1,995
One site · everything included

Both days, the report, and the walkthrough call. The floor for all three routes, and the whole amount payable on a standard two-day audit. Perkins SmartOps is not registered for value added tax, so nothing is added to it. A custom scope, bigger teams, or additional sites are quoted before we start, never after.

Two credits. If you have had a Time and Money Map in the previous 30 days, its £495 comes off this. If you go ahead with a build within 30 days of the report, the audit fee comes off that.

Who does it

David Perkins, personally, both days. It is not delegated and there is no team of associates behind this. The whole value is somebody experienced sitting with your people and asking the right questions, which is not a thing that survives being handed to someone else.

What we will not do

We will not build or change anything during the two days. We do not need administrative access to any live system, because watching the work is enough. We will not touch your customers' personal data: staff, roster, process and job-level data only. And the report is not a build specification, so anything we go on to build carries its own short discovery first.

Independent, and what that means in practice

No software vendor pays us anything. We are not a reseller and we take no referral fees, so when the answer is that a process should be left alone, that is what the report says. The build, if you want one, is a separate decision and a separate engagement.

In more detail

What the AI route scores

The AI route answers a different question from the operations route, so it works to a different framework. Six dimensions, each scored with evidence drawn from observation, interviews, and document review. The combined picture shows where AI is paying back, where it is silent, and where it is quietly exposing the business.

Deployment depth. What is actually in use day to day, not what is licensed. A team with five Copilot seats and one habitual user is a one, not a five.

Systems integration. Whether the AI steps connect to your real systems, or sit in parallel as side tools your team copy-pastes into.

Data and context. Whether the systems can see the information they need to be useful: customer history, prior decisions, policy documents, the actual source of truth. Most “AI is not working for us” verdicts trace back to this row.

Outcomes. Whether the work is measurable. Time saved, errors reduced, decisions made faster, capacity freed. If nobody can point to a number, the score is low whatever the spend.

People. Whether the team trusts the tools, knows when to override them, and has somewhere to raise problems. Adoption is a behaviour, not a rollout email.

Governance. Whether someone owns the data flow, the retention policy, and the processor relationships. This row has become material since AI started routing business and client data through new third-party processors. General Data Protection Regulation obligations on processors do not disappear because the tool was easy to switch on.

Why this is an audit, not a pitch

The method comes from internal audit and process optimisation, not from software sales. The questions are the ones an auditor would ask of any operational function: where is the spend, where is the value, where is the risk, who owns it, and what is the evidence. AI and automation are simply the part of the business those questions have not historically been applied to.

The reason an independent audit matters is the same reason an independent audit of anything matters. Anthropic will not tell you whether you should switch on Claude for Small Business. Microsoft will not tell you Copilot is being underused or oversold. The platform you build on is not the right party to assess whether the platform you build on is the right choice. We are independent AI and automation specialists. No software vendor pays us, we are not a reseller, and no commission flows from any recommendation, so when the answer is that a process should be left alone, that is what the report says.

Build pricing in the report is held to the same rule as everywhere else: priced to pay back in roughly 8 to 13 weeks, and never recommended at all above 26 weeks. That is a target we hold ourselves to, not a guarantee.

If you decide to act on the report, an Automation Build or an AI Put to Work build becomes the next engagement. Or you take the report and act on it yourself. Or you hand it to whoever is already doing the work. The audit is the audit.

Map or audit?

One question sorts it.

“Do you already know what you want fixed, or do you want someone to tell you what to fix first?”

If you already know, take the £495 Time and Money Map: a focused look at the process you have in mind, with a price to build the fix. If you do not, that is what the audit is for, and it does more work than any price comparison.

You know too much of the week goes on admin, but not which part is worst.
AI tools have appeared across the business and nobody has a clear picture of what is running.
You are about to invest, and you want an independent read before anyone builds anything.
What it gives you back
It's given me that time back to actually focus on running and growing the business instead of being stuck behind a laptop doing admin.

Chloe · Chloè's Hair And Beauty Read it on Google

Common questions

Before you book.

How do I know whether I need AI or just automation?
Here is the whole test. If the job has to be created fresh every time, that is AI. If it is the same thing every time with a different name in it, a confirmation email, a reminder, a monthly report, that is automation. They cost different amounts and they fail in different ways, which is the only reason the distinction matters. You do not have to work this out before you speak to us, and plenty of businesses have something running already without knowing what it is called.
Which of the four routes do I need?
Say what is bothering you on a call and we will tell you, including when the answer is that you do not need any of them yet. Roughly: if the problem is that too much of the week goes on admin and nobody can say which part is worst, that is the operations route. If AI tools have appeared across the business and nobody has a clear picture of what is running or what data is going where, that is the AI route. If you have already turned things on and want independent eyes over whether they are safe, compliant and owned, that is the assurance route. If your automations are still running but nobody can say how well, that is the health check route. If it is more than one of those, or none of them quite fits, we scope it from a conversation. The route you take is written into the terms of reference before anything starts, so nobody ends up with a report that does not match what they bought.
What actually happens over the two days?
Day one follows the work rather than the org chart. A short opening with everyone involved, then sessions of 45 to 60 minutes with the people who actually do each job, tracking one piece of work from the first enquiry through to the money arriving. The friction almost always lives in the handoffs between departments, so we follow the chain in order. Day two morning picks up whatever was missed plus the back-office work nobody thinks of as a process: reporting, reconciling, chasing, month end. Day two afternoon is a three-hour working session where the whole long list goes on the table and gets put in order with you. You will move things and disagree with some of it, which is the point.
What do I get at the end?
A written report by the Friday of that week. It carries the picture of how the work actually runs with the friction points numbered, everything worth doing in priority order, the biggest items fully worked and priced, a page on what we would deliberately not build and why, your first move and the next 30 days, a page listing every assumption and calculation so you can check our arithmetic, and build pricing if you want to proceed. Then a 45-minute walkthrough call the week after, included in the fee, booked before we leave site.
What does it cost?
£1,995 for a standard two-day audit at a single site, and that is the whole amount payable. Perkins SmartOps is not registered for value added tax, so nothing is added to it. It covers both days, the report, and the walkthrough call. A custom scope or additional sites are quoted before we start, never after. Two credits apply: if you have had a £495 Time and Money Map in the previous 30 days, the £495 comes off, and if you commission a build within 30 days of the report, the audit fee comes off that.
Will you sell me a build at the end?
No. The walkthrough is a walkthrough, not a pitch. We will not build or change anything during the two days either, however small and however tempting, because it sets the wrong precedent and it eats the report. One page of the report is a list of the things we would not build, with the reason and the number that failed. An audit that recommends everything is a sales document, and that page is how you can tell this one is not.
How is this different from the Time and Money Map?
The Map is £495 and it is for a business that already knows which process it wants looked at. The audit is for a business that does not, and wants somebody to walk the whole operation and tell them what to fix first. That sorting question does more work than any price comparison: do you already know what you want fixed, or do you want someone to tell you what to fix first? If the answer is the former, take the Map.
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