01Start from one real case, not from how you think it runs
Ask the person who does the work how the process runs and you get the version that should happen. The map needs the version that happened last Tuesday. Pick the most recent real case, open the actual email, booking or invoice, and write the steps in the order they happened, including the forwarded message, the number typed in twice and the phone call made to check something. Sit next to the person while they do the next one, because people leave out steps they do without thinking. PROOF48's automation page describes its own first day this way: watching how work moves through a business, what gets forwarded, what gets typed the same way twice, what you do every Monday. That day is the map, and it comes before the code.
- Pick the latest real case and rebuild it from the actual email, booking or invoice
- Write what happened, not what should happen
- Sit beside the person doing the next one; they skip steps they do on reflex
- Mark where it starts (the trigger) and what proves it is finished
02What goes on the map
One page is enough, and a table or a list of numbered lines works as well as a diagram. For each step write who does it, which tool or place it happens in, what it needs as input and what it produces. Write every decision as a plain sentence: if this, then that. Wherever the person says it depends, stop and ask on what, because that is a judgment call, and our automation page lists work that needs human judgment on every case as not a good fit. Then add the exceptions. Pull the last handful of real cases, including the awkward ones, and note what was different in each. Count how often an exception actually appears in the cases you have. Do not estimate it from memory and do not borrow a typical figure: we publish none.
- For each step: who, which tool or place, what goes in, what comes out
- Each decision as one sentence: if this, then that
- Every 'it depends' is a question to answer or a judgment call to keep with a person
- Exceptions taken from real cases, counted, not guessed
03Reading the map: ready, not ready, or delete the step
Look at the finished page and ask three things. Could someone new follow it and get the result a trained person would? That is the test in our post on which processes to automate first, and if the answer is yes and the rules have held for a few cycles, the process is a candidate. Do two experienced people handle the same case differently? Then settle the steps in writing before anything is built, because our automation page says a broken process runs faster when automated, and disagreement about the steps gets executed faithfully at scale. Is there a step that exists only because of an old tool or an old habit? Delete it instead of automating it. Our post on the signs your business is ready covers readiness in general, and this one covers only the map.
- A newcomer can follow the page and get the same result: a candidate
- Two people would handle a case differently: settle the steps first
- A step that exists only for an old tool: delete it, do not automate it
- Rules still moving: keep it manual and map it again later
04Where PROOF48 is the wrong choice
If your map comes out as one short rule, a checklist, a mailbox rule or an off-the-shelf tool may do the job for nothing or next to it, and our post on custom automation versus an off-the-shelf tool helps you choose. AUTOMATE costs 2,997 EUR a month and includes an AI website chatbot, AI DM and email auto-responders, booking automation with a CRM and two custom automations a month. It does not cover WhatsApp or phone, so a process that lives in WhatsApp messages or phone calls is not what that plan is for. Our automation page says a single flow takes one to two weeks from mapping to production and that standalone builds are scoped and priced on request. We publish no separate price for the mapping alone.
- One short rule on the map: a checklist or a mailbox rule may be enough
- AUTOMATE: 2,997 EUR a month, two custom automations; no WhatsApp, no phone
- A single flow: one to two weeks from mapping to production, per our automation page
- No separate price published for the mapping alone
What a map has to hold: three lines, one system
ATP Spedition runs last-mile courier, moving and freight, with Romania first and Spain and the wider EU designed in. Its case study says off-the-shelf software assumes you do one thing, and that what we built is one job model covering all three lines, each with its own rules, plus a country layer so tax, invoicing and addresses change per market. The entry records the result, not the method, so we do not claim how the mapping was done. It does show what a map must be able to hold: three lines with their own rules, not one process with a few exceptions.
See the build: ATP SpeditionQuestions, answered
How long does mapping a process take?
Our automation page describes a day at the start of a project spent watching how work moves through the business, and says a single flow takes one to two weeks from mapping to production. How long your own map takes depends on the process, and we have no average to quote.
Do I need special software to map a process?
No. One page and the real emails, bookings or invoices from the last few cases are enough. The software comes later, if at all.
What if the map shows my process is a mess?
Then the map did its job. Fix the steps by hand, run them for a while, and automate the version that held. Our automation page says that if the process is wrong, we say so before we build.
Does PROOF48 do the mapping for me?
Our automation page says we map the process before touching the code. We publish no separate price for the mapping alone.
Where PROOF48 fits
Map a process from real cases, not from memory: the trigger, each step, who does it, which tool it touches, the decisions, the exceptions counted from real cases and the finish line. If it fits on one page and a newcomer can follow it, it is a candidate. If people disagree on the steps, settle that first. PROOF48's AUTOMATE plan costs 2,997 EUR a month, and our automation page says we map before touching code.
Cosmin Tiu · Founder, PROOF48
Cosmin has worked in online marketing and software development since 2018, and has built with AI every day since January 2023. He still writes code from scratch daily, in Python, React, Rust and C#. PROOF48 ships business websites in 48 hours and invoices afterwards, so every opinion on this blog was paid for in real builds, not in theory.