The audit
A few sessions, then a written report you can act on.
There's no software to install, no questionnaire to fill in on your own time, and nothing for your staff to prepare. You give us a few hours across three sessions, and we do the rest.
It covers all of your firm's technology: what you already pay for and aren't using, the off-the-shelf tools worth adding, and the AI your vendors keep building in.
How it runs
- A 30-minute call first, free. You describe how work moves through the firm, and we tell you whether there's enough here to be worth paying for. If there isn't, that's the end of it and it's cost you half an hour.
- The working session, two to three hours, booked as one block. A screen share. You work, and we watch and ask questions. Where does a matter start? Who retypes what? What gets chased? What sits in one person's head? Which systems don't talk to each other?
- We check what your systems actually ship. After the working session, we read up on what your specific products do on your specific plan, including what sits one plan above you and what it would cost to get there. That covers your CRM or practice management system, planning and portfolio software, documents, email, phones and scheduling, and the AI inside each of them.
- A follow-up session. Once we've done the research, we come back to look again at the screens that matter, confirm which plans you're on, and cover what the first session didn't.
- The written report, inside a week of the follow-up. Named products, named settings, the price where there is one, and an order to do things in.
- A final review session. We walk through the report together. You can push back and we can be wrong, and that's easier to sort out in conversation than over email.
What the document contains
- Already paid for, not switched on. The specific features inside your current subscriptions, what each one would change, and how long it takes to turn on.
- One plan up. Where the thing you need is real but sits on a plan you're not on, with the actual price difference so you can decide instead of guessing.
- Worth buying. Named products, with the published price where there is one. Some of them cost forty dollars a month, and we won't dress a cheap answer up as a big one. Where the vendor won't publish a price, you get the reported range, where it came from, and what to negotiate.
- Worth building. Only where nothing off the shelf fits the way you work. Sized to the job, with a rough cost so you can compare it against doing nothing.
- Leave alone. With the reason for each one.
- Do this first. One thing, and why it goes first.
About prices, since a lot of vendors hide them
A lot of the software your firm runs doesn't publish what it costs. Practice management systems, advisory platforms and the big research tools mostly send you to a form.
So every price in the report is one of three kinds, and the report says which.
- Published. Read on the vendor's own page, with the date we checked it.
- Reported. What firms your size are on record paying, from a named source with a date: aggregated contract data, a consultant who published it, a review, a trade article. Never a number without a source attached.
- Not published. Said plainly, with what to ask for instead and where your leverage is. Contract length and the yearly price increase are usually worth more than the headline rate anyway.
Prices move constantly, and vendors reprice without telling anyone. If you get a quote that's different from something we told you, we want to hear it. That's how this stays accurate, and you'll get a straight answer about whether we were out of date or you were quoted badly.
What it doesn't include
- We don't touch your client files. No logins, no exports, no documents. The audit works by watching how the work moves, and it never needs what's inside it.
- It isn't a security review. A lot of what gets sold as a technology or AI assessment is a permissions and file-sharing clean-up. That work is worth doing, and your IT provider is better placed to do it.
- It isn't a score. You get named products and settings you can act on.
- The recommendations don't depend on hiring us. We also offer help putting them in place, and that's exactly why every recommendation has to survive you asking whether we're only saying it because we'd be paid to do it. If it can't, it doesn't go in.
What it costs
A working session, a follow-up session once we've done the research, the written report, and a final review session to walk through it.
If you want help setting up what the audit recommends, we do it on a monthly retainer, billed on the time it takes, for as long as the setup runs. It ends when your staff can run things themselves. You don't need it to buy the audit.
The audit is a fixed price, agreed before we start, with no hourly billing and no change orders. If it turns out bigger than it looked, you won't see a second invoice.
The audit is paid on its own and isn't credited against later work, so the recommendations never depend on whether you hire us for anything else.
Same price for advisory and law firms. It isn't legal or compliance advice.