Business operations audit checklist: investigate the work, not just the tools.

Use this checklist to prepare a review of one business workflow. It is designed to reveal what you know, what different people report and what still requires evidence. It does not generate a business health score or replace a financial, legal or compliance audit.

Download the working checklist. No email is required.

Write down the decision the review should support. Name the workflow's first trigger and final accepted result. Identify the sponsor, the person who owns the workflow and everyone who sends, performs, reviews or receives part of it.

A useful scope is “from an accepted quote to an order ready for fulfillment.” “Everything in operations” usually needs to be broken into smaller reviews.

Ask leadership how the process is intended to work. Ask participants for a recent example of what they actually did. Retain both accounts where they differ.

For each important statement, record its source, date and status: reported, supported by a permitted artifact, confirmed by the relevant person, disputed or unknown. Do not turn consensus in one meeting into proof that every case follows the same path.

For each task, establish what starts it, which inputs are required, what action occurs, which system is used and what result is produced. Name both the performer and the owner where those differ.

The roles, duties and tasks worksheet helps keep a broad responsibility separate from an executable step.

Ask the sender what they consider complete. Ask the receiver what they need to begin. Compare the answers. Record how missing information is returned, who resolves it and whether anyone tracks the waiting time.

“Sent an email” and “delivered a usable input” are not the same event. Use the cross-functional handoff questions to examine that difference.

Ask about a recent unusual case. Who decided what to do? Which rule or policy applied? Was the normal route changed? Who else had information that made the decision possible?

Also ask what would happen if the usual expert were unavailable. An undocumented dependency is a question to investigate, not evidence that a person is unnecessary.

List any available measures: request volume, elapsed time, hands-on effort, rework, errors or waiting queues. Label sample periods and missing data. Avoid adding overlapping estimates from several employees as though they are independent costs.

A reported frustration can justify further investigation even when no financial estimate is available. It does not justify inventing a dollar value.

For each finding, include the evidence, affected workflow, responsible decision-maker and proposed next step. Identify what would have to be measured to determine whether the change worked.

The recommendation may be a clearer intake, an ownership decision, better documentation, a system connection or a small AI pilot. Keep current-state findings separate from proposed future-state design.

Illustrative: Sales reports that customer setup is complete when an account record exists. Finance reports that billing cannot begin without a tax field and invoice contact. The finding is an inconsistent completion rule. The next step is to agree the handoff requirements and observe whether incomplete submissions decline.

“Finance is slow” would be an unsupported conclusion from the same evidence.

An advisor can use the checklist to scope the review, gather leadership context, request private team responses and organize the returned work records. Participants can speak or type; the advisor focuses follow-up on missing or conflicting details.

Explore the business operations audit to discuss a scoped pilot, or use the process discovery interview questions to begin collecting examples yourself.