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Business Knowledge and Control Assessment

Purpose: The Business Knowledge and Control Assessment evaluates key areas of business control and identifies the area that may require the greatest immediate attention. Your results will help you understand your current control environment and identify the APR resource or support pathway most appropriate for your business. This free assessment provides educational and organizational guidance and is not a substitute for legal, tax, accounting, or other professional advice.
Response Scale:
1: Not in place, unknown, or not consistently done
2: Mostly not in place
3: Partially in place
4: Mostly in place and generally reliable
5: Fully in place, documented, and consistently reviewed

Choose the response that best reflects your business today.

Name

Email

Know What Supports Your Business| Business Foundation

Start with the basic records, structure, accounts, and obligations that form the foundation of the business.

1. I can clearly state the business's legal name, entity type, ownership, and current contact information.

2. Required registrations, licenses, permits, and insurance are identified and current.

3. Core governing documents, contracts, policies, and ownership records are organized and accessible.

4. I maintain a complete inventory of business bank, credit, loan, payment, and merchant accounts.

Know How Work Gets Done | Process Control

Consider whether important business activities can be performed consistently without depending on memory or one person.

5. The business' important recurring processes are identified and prioritized.

6. Key workflows are documented well enough for another qualified person to understand and follow them.

7. Important handoffs, approvals, decision points, and responsibilities within key processes are defined.

8. Process breakdowns, bottlenecks, rework, and recurring workflow problems are identified and addressed rather than repeatedly worked around.

Know and Control Your Numbers | Financial Control

Think about whether the financial information used to manage the business is complete, reliable, and useful for decisions.

9. Business bank, credit card, loan, payment processor, payroll, and other financial accounts are completely captured in the financial recordkeeping process.

10. Financial accounts are reconciled consistently, and unexplained balances or transactions are investigated.

11. Revenue, expenses, owner transactions, liabilities, and other financial activity are consistently categorized, documented, and supportable.

12. I regularly review reliable financial information about cash, profitability, obligations, and future cash needs when making business decisions.

Know Where Revenue is Coming From| Customer & Revenue Visibility

Consider how clearly you can see customers, opportunities, commitments, and revenue performance.

13. I can clearly describe and monitor the customer journey from initial opportunity through sale, delivery, payment, and follow-up.

14. Leads, proposals, active opportunities, customer commitments, renewals, and revenue-related follow-ups are tracked in a reliable system.

15. I can see how revenue and profitability differ across significant customers, services, products, or projects.

16. I regularly monitor customer and revenue risks such as concentration, declining activity, lost opportunities, overdue payments, or retention concerns.

Know What is Happening in the Business | Operational Visibility

Consider whether you can see the status of work and operational issues without having to reconstruct information manually.

17. Active work, projects, customer commitments, deadlines, and important operational priorities are tracked in a reliable view.

18. I can readily determine what work is on track, delayed, blocked, or at risk.

19. Capacity, workload, dependencies, and recurring operational problems are visible enough to identify potential issues before they significantly affect performance.

20. Operational issues and exceptions are consistently tracked through resolution rather than relying on memory or informal follow-up.

Know What Could Create a Problem | Risk & Control Visibility

Consider how consistently risks, obligations, exceptions, and control gaps are identified and monitored.

21. Important financial, operational, contractual, compliance, and business risks are identified and assigned to someone responsible for monitoring them.

22. Renewals, filings, licenses, insurance, tax obligations, contracts, and other recurring requirements are tracked on a reliable calendar or monitoring system.

23. Control gaps, exceptions, unresolved issues, and other known risks are documented with an owner, required action, and expected resolution date.

24. Significant risks and unresolved control issues are reviewed regularly and escalated when necessary.

Know Who Owns What | Accountability & Performance Control

Consider whether responsibility, decision authority, expectations, and follow-through are clear.

25. Important responsibilities and expected outcomes are clearly assigned to specific people or roles.

26. Decision authority is clear enough that routine decisions can be made without unnecessary dependence on the business owner.

27. Important commitments and action items have clear owners, due dates, and follow-up expectations.

28. Performance expectations and key measures are reviewed consistently and missed commitments or results trigger follow-up or escalation.

Bring the Business Together | Management Visibility

Finally, consider whether you have an integrated management view of the information needed to run the business.

29. I have a reliable management view that brings together the most important financial, customer, operational, risk, and performance information.

30. Key business indicators are reviewed on a consistent schedule rather than only when a problem occurs.

31. Current priorities, significant exceptions, required decisions, responsible owners, and next actions can be seen together.

32. I can determine what has changed in the business, what requires attention, and what decisions are needed without manually gathering information from multiple people or systems.