The August Audit: A 20-Minute Tech Stack Health Check Before Autumn Hits

August has a particular quality for small business owners. Client enquiries slow down, inboxes go quiet, and for the first time in months there’s actual thinking space. It’s tempting to use it purely for rest, and you should use plenty of it for that, but it’s also the best window all year for a specific, small job: checking what’s actually happening with your tech stack.

Not the full “audit everything about my business” exercise. That’s a bigger job for a quieter month like this one back in June. This is narrower, deliberately so: twenty minutes, one list, and the subscriptions and logins that quietly accumulate over a year of running a business.

Why August Specifically

Three reasons. First, you have the headspace - there’s rarely another month where “check your bank statement for tools you’ve forgotten you’re paying for” feels like a reasonable use of a quiet Tuesday afternoon. Second, doing this now means you go into the September rush with a stack that actually works, rather than discovering a lapsed integration mid-client-project in October. Third, most subscription renewals and price rises tend to land quietly throughout the year - August is as good a time as any to actually notice them.

The 20-Minute Version

You don’t need a spreadsheet audit for this one (that’s what the Mid-Year Systems Audit is for). Just work through these five questions:

1. What am I actually paying for? Pull up your bank or card statement for the last month and list every recurring business charge. Don’t judge yet - just list.

2. What have I stopped using but I’m still paying for? Be honest. The trial you upgraded and never used properly. The tool you switched away from six months ago but never cancelled. This is usually where the quickest wins are.

3. Is anything duplicating something else? Two scheduling tools. Two places you’re storing client files. Two email marketing platforms because you never fully migrated. Pick one, and plan the switch for a quiet week - not now, but flag it.

4. Are my logins actually secure? Quick check: are you still using a password you set up three years ago? Is two-factor authentication switched on for anything holding client or financial data? This takes minutes and matters more than it feels like it does.

5. What’s coming up for renewal in the next quarter? A lot of annual subscriptions renew without much warning. Knowing what’s coming means you can actually decide whether to keep it, rather than the decision being made for you by a card charge.

What to Do With What You Find

You don’t need to action everything today. The point of this exercise is simply visibility — most small business owners are paying for more than they realise, and have no clear picture of what actually holds their operations together versus what’s just quietly running in the background.

Once you have the list, three piles: keep, cancel, and “needs a proper decision later.” That third pile is where the real value sits - it’s the start of the conversation about what your tech stack should look like going into next year, rather than what it’s accidentally become.

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Mary Weatherley is the founder of Control Alt Completed, a UK-based virtual assistant business specialising in systems, operations, and business support. With 20+ years of board-level EA experience, she helps small business owners get organised, get systems in place, and get on with running their businesses.