How the score works
Where does your work spend its week, working or waiting? You answer four short questions about each of eight areas of finance work, 32 questions in all. Each answer is a pick from five bands, and each band is worth points. The points add up to a score out of 10 for the area. The eight areas then average into your GAAPx Score, a whole number out of 100.
The score shows how lean your work is and where it waits, so you know which area to look at first. Every answer is your own, so the score is self-assessed and nobody checks it.
The scoring rules are proposed and may change. Every change is recorded in the changelog.
The four terms
The same four words are used in every area.
| Term | Plain definition | Everyday example (illustrative) |
|---|---|---|
| Steps | How many planned steps the work takes from start to finish. Rework is not counted here. | An invoice is received, keyed in, coded, approved and paid. That is 5 steps. |
| Loops | Every time work goes back to an earlier step to fix something. This is where rework shows up. | The approver says the coding is wrong and sends it back to AP. That is 1 loop. |
| Owners | How many people or teams touch the work. | The AP clerk, the buyer and the department head each handle it. That is 3 owners. |
| Break time | How many working days the work waits between steps while nobody works on it. Weekends and holidays are not counted. | The invoice sits in a manager's inbox for 3 working days. That is 3 days of break time. |
| Not sure | Pick it when you cannot say. It counts as the lowest band, so the score does not flatter you. | If you can estimate, pick the closest band. A rough answer beats a blank one. |
Steps count the plan. Loops count the trips back. A trip back to fix something is a loop, and the loop count is still reported so you can watch it fall.
From answers to score, in three steps
- Pick a band for each term. There are five bands, from "lots of it" to "very little". The band you pick is worth 1.0, 0.8, 0.6, 0.4 or 0.2 points, best band first.
- Add up the four, with break time counted twice. Waiting is what stays slow even when AI makes single tasks fast, so it carries 2 of the 5 shares. The area gets (steps + loops + owners + 2 x break time) / 5, then x 10 for a score out of 10, shown to one decimal.
- Average the eight areas. All eight count the same. The GAAPx Score is the average of the eight area scores x 10, a whole number out of 100. Each area score is out of 10, so the mean is out of 10 and times 10 gives 0 to 100.
The break-time bands are assumptions. They have not been researched yet. We plan to check them with several practitioners. Until then, treat them as a starting point.
| Term | Weight | Share of the area score |
|---|---|---|
| Steps | 1 | 20% |
| Loops | 1 | 20% |
| Owners | 1 | 20% |
| Break time | 2 | 40% |
A worked example
Illustrative example, with invented answers for an invented company. One area, Spend (accounts payable), is answered with band 3 for steps, band 3 for loops, band 3 for owners and band 2 for break time.
| Term | Band | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Steps | 3 | 0.6 |
| Loops | 3 | 0.6 |
| Owners | 3 | 0.6 |
| Break time | 2 | 0.4, counted twice, so 0.8 |
Efficiency = (0.6 + 0.6 + 0.6 + 0.8) / 5 = 0.52, or 52 percent. Area score = 5.2 out of 10.
Break time is the lowest band here and it carries 40 percent of the result. If the invoices waited less, this area would move the most.
Illustrative example, all eight areas. An invented company scores 5.2 (Spend), 7.6 (Get Paid), 6.0 (Payroll), 6.8 (The Close), 6.0 (Budget vs Actual), 7.2 (Cash Ops), 5.2 (Controls) and 6.4 (Reporting).
- Sum: 5.2 + 7.6 + 6.0 + 6.8 + 6.0 + 7.2 + 5.2 + 6.4 = 50.4
- Mean: 50.4 / 8 = 6.3
- GAAPx Score: 6.3 x 10 = 63, shown as 63 out of 100, based on 8 of 8 areas
If you leave an answer blank
Skip anything you do not know. A skipped question or a "Not sure" counts as the lowest band, which is 0.2 points. Every area is still scored, nothing is dropped, and the score is always based on 8 of 8 areas. The report tells you how many answers were left blank, so you can see where to fill in more.
Illustrative example. Loops is blank in the Spend example above. Efficiency = (0.6 + 0.2 + 0.6 + 0.8) / 5 = 0.44, so the area score is 4.4. The eight areas now sum to 50.4 - 5.2 + 4.4 = 49.6. Mean: 49.6 / 8 = 6.2. GAAPx Score: 6.2 x 10 = 62 out of 100.
Illustrative example. A whole area left blank scores 0.2 on every question: (0.2 + 0.2 + 0.2 + 2 x 0.2) / 5 = 0.2, so 2.0 out of 10. Say Controls is blank and the other seven areas score as in the example above. The eight areas sum to 50.4 - 5.2 + 2.0 = 47.2. Mean: 47.2 / 8 = 5.9. GAAPx Score: 5.9 x 10 = 59 out of 100, based on 8 of 8 areas. The report notes that one area includes blank answers.
Weights are a starting point
The weights are a starting point and will change as we talk with practitioners. Break time counts double today because waiting is where AI helps least. We will adjust that as controllers and CFOs tell us what they see. Every change goes in the changelog.
Governance is separate
AI oversight is asked once for the whole finance function, not once per area. It never changes the GAAPx Score and carries no weights. It gets its own level instead. See governance and AI risk.
The deeper view for your workflows
After the eight areas, you pick the workflows you want to improve first, up to three. For those, the real steps are documented and a before and after workflow diagram is drawn. The diagrams are drawn from the steps the reader documents.
This deeper view uses the facts for one workflow instead of bands. Each fact is compared with an ideal.
- Steps ratio = the smaller of 1 and (ideal steps / actual steps)
- Loops ratio = the larger of 0 and (1 - loops / actual steps)
- Owners ratio = the smaller of 1 and (ideal owners / actual owners)
- Break ratio = the smaller of 1 and (ideal break days / actual break days). If actual break days is 0, the ratio is 1. Break days are working days.
The standard ideal is 6 steps and no loops. A complicated flow may need more steps, so the ideal can differ per flow later. Ideal owners and ideal break days are standards that we set for each workflow. You never edit them. Actual steps are the planned steps without rework, so the loops ratio compares loops with that count.
Efficiency and the workflow score use the same weights as above. Workflow score out of 10 = efficiency x 10, shown to one decimal.
A worked example for one workflow
Illustrative example, with invented numbers. The ideal is 6 steps, 2 owners and 1 break day. The actual process takes 8 steps, with 2 loops, 3 owners and 4 break days.
| Ratio | Working | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Steps | 6 / 8 | 0.75 |
| Loops | 1 - 2 / 8 | 0.75 |
| Owners | 2 / 3 | 0.667 |
| Break time | 1 / 4 | 0.25 |
Break time counts twice, so it adds 2 x 0.25 = 0.5.
Efficiency = (0.75 + 0.75 + 0.667 + 0.5) / 5 = 0.533, or 53.3 percent.
Workflow score = 0.533 x 10 = 5.3 out of 10.
Break time is the weakest ratio here, and it carries 40 percent of the result. Cutting waiting from 4 working days to 2 would lift the score the most.
Before and after
All facts come from you, through short questions.
- Before is your current process.
- After is the same process with the manual steps automated. It is a target, not a finding.
Two different questions
The site answers two questions. They are separate.
| Question | Measure | Where to read it |
|---|---|---|
| How is the work done? | Journey score and stage | Journey scale and stages |
| How lean is the process? | Area scores and the GAAPx Score | This page |
A team can run a lean process by hand. Another team can automate a process that has too many loops. One answer does not predict the other.
What the score does not do
Every score is self-assessed. Nobody checks your answers, and the site says so. There is no peer comparison yet. The score compares you with a standard, not with other companies. The GAAPx Score is a way to see where work waits. It is not a certification.