By KYN AI Advisory Team — AI implementation specialists, Singapore
To find where admin time goes in a 20-person company, have every person log tasks for ten working days, tag each entry with a workflow and a type, and rank workflows by hours and by the cost of an error. The top three are usually repeat data entry, chasing, and reporting. This article gives the method. It does not report a result from a named company, because the numbers belong to the company that measures them.
Why audit before you automate?
People guess badly about their own time. A finance lead may think month-end takes a day and find it takes three, spread across chasing, re-keying and checking. An automation built on the guess fixes the wrong thing.
An audit gives you three numbers per workflow: hours per week, number of people involved, and what an error costs. Those three decide the order of work. Without them the loudest complaint wins, which is not the same as the largest cost.
How do you run the audit?
Run it over ten working days, which covers two full weeks and one month-end or similar peak if you time it well.
- Pick the scope. All 20 people, or the departments where admin concentrates: finance, sales support, operations, HR. Exclude work that is the product, such as client advice or fabrication.
- Give everyone one log. A shared sheet with five columns: date, minutes, what you did, which tool, who asked for it. Fifteen seconds per entry. Log at the end of each task, not at the end of the day.
- Fix the tags before you start. Tags added later are inconsistent. Use the list below.
- Review on day 5. Read the entries with the team. Fix blank rows and vague lines such as "admin".
- Close on day 10. Total by workflow and by tag.
Keep it honest. Say that the log is to find work to remove, not to measure people. If staff think it is surveillance, they will round down.
Which tags should you use?
Eight tags cover most admin. Each entry gets one.
| Tag | Example | |---|---| | Re-keying | Copying a quotation into the accounting package | | Chasing | Asking for a missing receipt, an unpaid invoice, an approval | | Reporting | Building the weekly sales or stock summary by hand | | Checking | Comparing two lists to find differences | | Searching | Finding a file, a contract, an old email | | Scheduling | Booking meetings, site visits, deliveries | | Filing | Saving documents to the right place and name | | Exceptions | Handling a case that fits no process |
Re-keying, chasing, reporting and checking are the four that automation handles well. Searching and filing often fall away once the data lives in one place. Exceptions stay with people, and you should keep them visible, because they show where your process has a gap.
How do you rank the results?
Build a table with one row per workflow.
| Workflow | Hours per week | People | Error cost | Frequency | |---|---|---|---|---| | Invoice chasing | from log | from log | late cash | weekly | | Month-end reconciliation | from log | from log | wrong figures | monthly | | Lead follow-up | from log | from log | lost deals | daily |
Score each on a simple scale you fix in advance:
- Hours. Total weekly hours across all people.
- Error cost. 1 if a mistake is caught internally the same day. 3 if it reaches a client or a regulator. 5 if it moves money.
- Rule clarity. 1 if the right answer needs judgement every time. 5 if a written rule decides it.
Multiply hours by error cost by rule clarity. The highest scores are the strongest candidates: they have the most to gain and the least risk of automating badly. A task with many hours and no clear rule scores low on purpose. Rules first, then agents.
What do you do with the top three?
For each of the top three workflows, write the steps as they run today. Use one real example from the log. Mark each step as one of:
- Automate fully. A rule decides and the action is reversible. Example: copy a bill from an inbox into a register.
- Automate and review. The system drafts and a person approves. Example: a chase message.
- Keep with a person. Judgement, a relationship or money leaving the account.
Our rule is that outbound messages, money, filings and deletions wait for a named person. The audit tells you how much time sits before those gates, which is where the saving is. Drafting a chase takes minutes. Reading the debtor list, finding the contact and writing the message takes much longer, and it can be done before the person ever opens it.
How do you convert hours into a cost?
Use your own numbers. Do not borrow an average.
- Hours per week for the workflow, from the log.
- Multiply by 48 working weeks for annual hours. Adjust for your leave policy.
- Multiply by the loaded hourly cost of the people involved: salary plus employer contributions plus overhead.
- Add the cost of errors: write-offs, late fees, rework.
For Singapore staff, the employer's CPF share is part of the loaded cost. The CPF Board states a 17% employer rate from 1 January 2026 for citizens and SPRs aged 55 and below with wages above S$750. Other groups have other rates. See our comparison of automation versus hiring in a Singapore SME for the full cost build-up.
Compare that annual figure with the build fee and the retainer, which is at least twelve months. If the payback is longer than the retainer term, narrow the scope.
What mistakes spoil the audit?
- Logging after the fact. Entries made on Friday for Monday are fiction.
- Counting only the person who complains. The workflow involves everyone it touches. Count the chaser and the chased.
- Merging tags. "Admin" is not a tag. If you cannot place an entry, the entry is too vague.
- Skipping the peak. An audit run in a quiet fortnight misses month-end, which is often where the pain sits.
- Treating hours as the only measure. A ten-minute task that sends a wrong invoice can cost more than a three-hour one.
Where KYN fits
The first 14 days of a KYN engagement are a review: an inventory of the stack and interviews with the team. A time log like this one is the evidence we ask for, because it replaces opinion with minutes. From it we rank workflows and propose a first system, with the approvals marked. A full build ships in under 90 days, in a cloud account in your name, with every action logged against the actor.
We used the same approach to retire spreadsheets and repeat entry in KYN's own books: bills from Gmail, receivables chased at 3, 14 and 30 days, payroll on 2026 CPF rules. See operations and finance.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a time audit run?
Ten working days is the minimum that gives a usable pattern. Include a month-end or the nearest peak, or the audit will understate finance and reporting work.
Do I need software to run it?
No. A shared spreadsheet with five columns works. Software helps only if the team already uses a time tool with task tags.
What if staff under-report?
Say clearly that the purpose is to find work to remove. Review entries together on day 5, and compare the totals against known workloads such as the number of invoices issued.
Checked 30 October 2026.
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