Process audit
Definition
A process audit is a structured review of recurring workflows: which steps exist, which systems and people are involved, how long each step takes, how often it fails, and what a case costs. It produces the evidence base for any automation decision.
The audit output is a ranked list: process, volume, effort per case, error rate, automation potential and dependencies.
Without it, automation projects optimise the loudest problem instead of the most expensive one.
In practice
- Volume, effort and error rate per process step
- Explicit list of systems, hand-offs and data sources
- Ranked backlog with expected effect per initiative
Related terms
- Process miningProcess mining reconstructs how a process actually runs by analysing timestamps and event logs from existing systems. It reveals real variants, loops, waiting times and rework — usually a very different picture from the documented process.
- Business process automation (BPA)Business process automation is the systematic execution of a recurring business process by software, from trigger to result, including the data, rules and hand-offs involved. Unlike single-task tools it targets the whole chain: intake, decision, execution and record.
- Total cost of ownership (TCO)Total cost of ownership is the full cost of a system over its lifetime: build or licence, integration, hosting, model usage, support, changes and internal effort. For AI systems the usage-based model cost and the maintenance of integrations are the items most often underestimated.