Operations & Systems Audit

Your business runs on six systems and one person's memory.

A focused diagnostic that maps how your operation actually runs, finds what the sprawl is quietly costing you, and hands you a ranked plan for what to fix first.

Fixed fee. No slide deck.

$7,500 fixed — not hourly
Two to three weeks
No access to your banking
(480) 382-7823preston@zellerhaus.com

Is this you?

None of this shows up on a P&L as a line item. It shows up as the feeling that everything takes longer than it should.

The same job number gets typed into three different systems.

Only one person can produce an estimate.

You're not sure which copy of a document is the current one.

You're paying for software you're not certain anyone still uses.

If one person were out for two weeks, something important would stop.

You've bought tools to fix problems and ended up with more problems.

You know you need to fix this. You don't know where to start.

If you nodded at three of these, the audit was built for you.

How it works

Two to three weeks, start to finish. Most of the work is mine. Your team's time is measured in hours, not weeks.

01

Working sessions

One to two sessions with you and your key people — the ones who actually touch the process every day. I want every pain point directly from the person who feels it, not filtered through a manager.

02

Guided walkthroughs

Screen-share walkthroughs of the systems you actually run on, so I can see exactly where time is lost and data gets duplicated. No access to your banking is needed at any point.

03

Synthesis

I take every voice — owners and staff alike — and turn it into one prioritized picture, from a vantage point nobody inside the day-to-day has. This is where the pattern behind the noise becomes obvious.

04

Live readout

We walk through the findings together and argue with them in real time. The diagnostic is a working conversation, not a PDF that lands in your inbox and dies there.

What lands on your desk

Two documents you own and can act on — with me, or entirely without me.

01

The Written Diagnostic

Your operation exactly as it runs today

  • Systems Map

    Where each type of information lives now, versus where it should have one home.

  • Software Savings Ledger

    Every subscription you pay for, line by line, marked keep, consolidate, or cut — with the annual total at the bottom. Whatever that number turns out to be, you'll have it in writing.

  • Risk Register

    Your key-person, security, and compliance exposure — the processes only one person can run, the approvals with no separation of duties — each rated by severity.

  • Process-by-Process Findings

    For each core process: what's working, what's breaking, and the root cause underneath it.

02

The Prioritized Roadmap

A sequenced plan for what to do about it

  • Impact-vs-Effort ranking

    Every opportunity scored, so the quick wins are obvious and nothing gets tackled out of order.

  • A phased plan

    Sequenced so each step sets up the next — because some fixes are impossible until an earlier dependency is untangled.

  • A 30 / 60 / 90 start-here

    The highest-value first moves, so you know exactly where to start on day one.

  • Budget scenarios

    What gets tackled first at different investment levels, so you stay in control of the pace and the spend.

The investment

$7,500Fixed fee. Not hourly.

50% to begin, 50% when the roadmap is in your hands.

For most businesses under 50 people.

Founding engagements — three in 2026 at this price

I've spent sixteen years fixing operations like this from inside companies, including one that sold for $2B and one that went public. I'm building this as an independent practice now, and I'm pricing the first three engagements accordingly. You get senior attention and a fixed fee that won't exist in a year.

  • No hourly billing and no scope creep — the number above is the number.
  • No access to your bank accounts, ever.
  • Every phase after the audit is separate, optional, and priced on its own.

The audit is the starting point, not the finish line

Based on what we find, the work gets tackled in phases — so you get the biggest return first and approve each step as we go. Each phase is scoped and priced separately.

Phase 1

Quick wins & risk reduction

Cut the dead and duplicate software. Close the approval gaps where one person can both create a payee and pay them. Put automatic holds on payments to vendors with expired insurance or open liens.

Phase 2

Single source of truth & SOPs

Document the process end to end, clarify who owns what, and establish one home per type of information — so the redundant entry stops instead of getting automated.

Phase 3

Get it out of your head

Rebuild the process that only one person can run — estimating, pricing, payables — as a system someone else can operate. This is the one that removes the ceiling on how big you can get.

Why me

Most consultants hand you a slide deck and disappear. I diagnose the problem and then build the fix alongside your team — and I document it into your systems, so the knowledge lives in the business instead of in one person.

540 hrs

of manual billing, eliminated

A team was losing ten-plus hours a week to a quote-to-cash process held together by hand. Automated end to end — that's three months of a full-time person given back every year.

6-figure

software contracts replaced

Vendor contracts swapped for systems the team owns and runs itself — built with modern, accessible tools rather than enterprise platforms.

$1.43M

in revenue nobody had noticed leaving

Money walking out the door annually with no owner and no system watching for it. Found it, then built the thing that catches it.

I did that inside a company that sold for $2B and one that went public. I do it now for businesses with fifteen people, using tools that cost hundreds a month instead of hundreds of thousands.

Straight answers

How many of these have you done?
As an independent engagement, I'm early — that's why the price is what it is and why I'm only taking three this year. The work itself isn't new to me: I've spent sixteen years doing exactly this inside companies, including one that sold for $2B and one that went public. You're getting senior operating experience at a founding-client price, and you should weigh both halves of that honestly.
Are you going to tell me to buy more software?
Usually the opposite. Most operations in this shape are carrying subscriptions nobody uses and two tools doing one job. The Software Savings Ledger marks every line keep, consolidate, or cut — and the cut column is generally the longest. You don't need more software. You need each piece of information to have one home.
Do you need access to my bank accounts?
No. Never. I look at how work moves through your systems — screen-share walkthroughs of the tools your team already uses. I don't need banking credentials, and I won't ask for them at any point.
How much of my team's time does this take?
Hours, not weeks. One to two working sessions, plus a screen-share walkthrough with each person who owns a process. The point is to take work off your team, so the audit is designed not to become work itself.
What if I just want the report and not the implementation?
Then you take the report and go. Both documents are yours to act on with anyone you like, including nobody. Every phase after the audit is scoped and priced separately — there's no retainer and nothing rolls over automatically.
Do you know my industry?
I know operations; you know your trade. The audit works precisely because I don't assume — I ask your people how the work actually moves, then bring an outside vantage point that nobody inside the day-to-day has. The pattern behind tool sprawl and key-person risk is remarkably consistent across industries. The specifics are always yours.
We're already busy. Is now really the time?
Being too busy to fix it is the symptom, not a reason to wait. That said, the honest answer is that the audit takes a few hours of your team's attention, and if you're mid-crisis, it can wait a few weeks. What it shouldn't wait for is the day the person who holds it all in their head is unavailable.

Find out what the chaos is actually costing you

A 30-minute call, no pitch deck. You describe how the work moves today, and I'll tell you plainly whether an audit is worth your money — including when it isn't.

Fixed fee · Two to three weeks · No access to your banking

(480) 382-7823preston@zellerhaus.com