The Audit Plugin

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The Audit Plugin

Watch the video attached to this lesson first. This written companion explains the thinking behind the audit, walks the three skills you'll actually use, and gives you a reference for what to connect when you run it on your own clients.

This is not a demo plugin. It is the one APG Software runs in production. 11 audits this year, 9 of them run personally by Adam, every one through this plugin, all in the last three months. It is under constant iteration and it is in a good spot today.

Why an audit comes first

You cannot drop AI into a business you do not understand. Before any automation makes sense, two things have to be in order:

  1. You understand how the business works, end to end. Its standard operating procedures (SOPs), the real ones, not the ones in a dusty handbook.
  2. The data is solid. AI is only as good as the data underneath it.

Think of it as three layers stacked on top of each other:

LayerWhat it isDataThe foundation. Solid, well-structured data is everything.SystemsHow you visualise and work with that data, your tools.AIThe automations on top: connecting Claude to your tools via MCPs so staff get things done through one interface.

The audit is how we get the bottom two layers in order so the top layer can actually work. The flow at the top is always the same: tools → MCP connector → Claude → staff. Your staff interact with Claude, Claude reaches into your tools through an MCP connection, and work gets done.

What the audit actually does

We run 5 to 20 hours of sessions with clear process owners inside the business. Smaller companies sit at the lower end, larger ones can hit 20 to 25 hours. Each session usually focuses on one process: marketing, sales, payroll, scheduling, whatever it is.

Out of all those meetings, the plugin builds four things:

  1. A process map. Broken down by process, drawn as a BPMN diagram (Business Process Modelling Notation). It maps the tools, the data, and the decisions inside a process so you can see visually how the business actually runs. This is extracted automatically from the transcripts.
  2. Findings. Every pain point and optimisation opportunity, each one linked back to the transcript it came from.
  3. Quantified waste. We attach a number to each finding, usually with an estimated blended rate (around $50/hr), and break it into opportunities.
  4. The AI roadmap. What we recommend going forward, with the role of tech laid out.

Alongside this we map their tools and check each one for an API that's easy to work with, and ideally an MCP we can connect to Claude. If a tool has a poorly maintained API or no clean way in, especially if it's expensive and barely used, we flag it as a possible data migration so the client is aware. That's a big decision, so usually we're just raising it, not pushing it.

The four solutions we recommend

Every finding maps to one of four solution types:

SolutionWhen we use itCowork plugins60-80% of what we recommend. We lean here more and more because of how effective it is.AutomationsDeterministic output, no human in the loop.Custom buildsRare. Only when it makes real financial sense and there's no big data-security risk.Data** migration**Mostly an awareness flag: a tool that's expensive, barely used, or hard to integrate.

Automation vs Cowork plugin is the distinction worth getting right, because they overlap:

  • An automation has a deterministic output and needs no human intervention. "If an invoice comes in under $5,000, auto-reconcile it. Over $5,000, flag it to an admin." It just runs.
  • A Cowork plugin is for anything that needs a human in the loop. Generating a proposal where someone reviews it, applies a discount, tweaks the wording, that's a plugin.

From the extracted findings, the plugin pulls out a set of initiatives and builds a priority matrix: annual value against implementation effort. That, plus a short-term and long-term outlook, is the roadmap the client walks away with.

How we deliver it

We used to host the audit as an online portal. We've since removed that. When you're dealing with enterprise clients, hosted infrastructure means worrying about security and maintenance, and it added complexity we didn't want. Now we just send the client a zip file they open themselves. Only the demo is still hosted. Simpler to build, simpler to maintain, less headache.

The plugin: three skills you'll actually use

When you install the audit plugin, you'll see several skills. Three do the real work:

1. Audit Extractor

This is where you start. It syncs all the client's communications, meetings, shared documents, email threads, phone call transcripts, and extracts them into a structured file (audit-data.json). It organises everything systematically, then builds the first three sections of the report: the process map, the findings, and the waste. These three sections are pure compilation of what the client gave you.

A few of its commands (it shows you the full list when you run it):

CommandWhat it doesSync & UpdatePull new meetings, docs, and emails from your connected source and extract them. Run after every session.Ingest MaterialsDeep extraction of every file the client dropped in the materials folder.Generate QuestionsBuild questions for your next interview session. It can check your calendar for the booked session, look at the role of the person you're meeting (sales owner, fulfilment owner, scheduler), and make sure you leave no gaps.Resolve QuestionsSearch all the materials to answer your open follow-up questions.Generate / Review pagesGenerate and review the process, findings, and waste pages to confirm the data is correct.Run** Pipeline**Runs the entire workflow in one trigger. Powerful, but when you're learning, don't use this first, run the steps individually so you understand what's happening.

2. Improvement Researcher

This builds the AI roadmap, the part you recommend to the client. It researches their tools to see which have MCPs, researches the automation opportunities, and assembles everything the blueprint needs: the initiatives, the priority matrix, the short-term and long-term outlook.

3. Deliverable Builder

This takes the structured JSON data and renders it into the visual assets the client sees, the polished, nice-looking pages. It never writes the pages by hand; it runs the generator so the output is consistent every time.

The two you can mostly ignore

  • Solution Designer builds a clickable prototype if you're going to build custom software. We rarely do that now, so it's largely redundant and may be removed.
  • Feedback Reviewer lets you feed review notes back in. Useful, but you can get a long way with just the three skills above.

There is a lot going on in this plugin. The fastest way to learn it is to jump in and start running it on a real client. You'll understand it far quicker by doing than by reading every command up front.

Connecting your data

Internally APG uses its own CRM to pull client communications, and it syncs automatically. For your own setup, connect these instead:

ConnectForFathomMeeting transcripts. Free, joins calls automatically, connects well to Claude. The one we recommend to start.Gmail (or Outlook)Email threads.Google** Drive**Documents the client shares.

That's plenty when it's just you. As you scale and hire, you can add tools like HubSpot to track phone calls and richer data, but you don't need it early.

Once connected, you make one small change: point the audit extractor at wherever your data lives (Fathom, Gmail, Drive, Outlook) so its sync command checks the right source.

The folder structure

The plugin works by pointing at a client's folder. Set one up per client, like this:

FolderHolds00-adminContracts and admin documentation01-materialsEverything the client gave you: meetings, documents, all communication data02-salesSales documents03-auditThe audit project itself_archiveAnything archived

To run an audit: open a session in the client's folder, activate the audit extractor, tell it which client you're working on, and run the sync command. It pulls and extracts everything, then you work through the skills in order.

What to do next

  • Watch the video again and follow the three-skill flow: extractor builds the first three sections, researcher builds the roadmap, deliverable builder renders the pages.
  • Set up your connectors: Fathom for transcripts, Gmail or Outlook for email, Drive for documents.
  • Create your first client folder and point the extractor at it. The fastest way to learn this plugin is to run it on a real client.

This plugin is under constant iteration, and we know it works because clients respond to it. As we improve it at the agency, those updates ship to you. The goal is always to make it simpler, not more complex.

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