An Australian business considering AI automation needs a clear answer to a practical question: what will the quoted price actually deliver? A demonstration can look impressive, but the investment needs to cover the work required to make the system useful in everyday operations.
Retailers, wholesalers, maintenance businesses and hospitality teams face different operating conditions. Their proposals should explain those conditions, the finished result and the costs that continue after launch.
Define one complete piece of work
Start with the input and the accepted outcome. For a maintenance business, an enquiry might arrive by email with photographs, a location and an incomplete description. The intended outcome could be a reviewed job brief with the missing information identified and the request assigned to the correct person.
That description gives the supplier something concrete to scope. It also helps the buyer assess whether an existing software feature can handle the task.
Include the awkward cases. What happens when the address is missing, the customer sends the same request twice or access conditions change? Those situations affect the engineering and the staff effort that remains.
Separate implementation from running costs
A proposal should distinguish discovery, implementation and operation.
Discovery establishes the workflow, available data, system access and acceptance criteria. Implementation covers the agreed build, testing, rollout and handover. Running costs may include software subscriptions, hosting, document processing and model or API usage.
Ask who holds each account, who pays each bill and how usage affects the total. A workflow handling a few documents each week has different operating assumptions from one processing hundreds daily.
For a published example, Canvo’s guide to AI implementation costs in Australia lists a diagnostic at A$950 excluding GST and a bounded first implementation starting at A$4,900 excluding GST. These are Canvo’s starting offers, with the final scope determining the price.
The agreed diagnostic credit also matters. If the full A$950 is credited against a total A$4,900 implementation, the remaining implementation balance is A$3,950. Compare proposals on the same GST basis.
Understand what makes a workflow harder
The number of systems is only one part of complexity. Record identities, data quality, permissions and commercial rules also affect the build.
A straightforward task might prepare a draft from a consistent document. A broader workflow could compare an order with stock availability, apply pricing rules and prepare a warehouse handover. Each additional decision needs defined inputs and an expected result.
The proposal should identify which actions the system may perform automatically and which require approval. It should also explain how uncertain results become visible to the team.
Include testing and recovery
Useful acceptance tests cover normal work, exceptions and recovery.
A supplier should be able to explain how the workflow handles missing fields, duplicate requests and a temporary connection failure. If a write may have succeeded before a timeout, recovery needs to check the destination before attempting another write.
Use representative examples from the actual business. Agree what counts as success and who signs it off. Testing, staff guidance and a safe transition belong in the delivery scope.
Australia’s business.gov.au guidance on AI also recommends documenting how AI is used, its limitations and who is responsible. A practical handover can make that information easy to maintain.
Clarify support and future changes
Ask when included support begins, what it covers and how an issue is reported. Distinguish defects in the agreed workflow from new features or a broader redesign.
Canvo’s published offer includes 12 months of support from acceptance for agreed delivered workflows, defects and minor API compatibility changes to existing integrations. There is no mandatory Canvo subscription. Proactive monitoring or broader operating responsibilities can be scoped separately.
Other proposals may use different arrangements. Compare the actual coverage, response expectations, account ownership and documentation.
Check value using realistic handling time
Estimate current human effort, then the effort remaining after rollout, including reviews and upkeep.
For an illustrative calculation, assume 300 items each month take eight minutes each today and three minutes afterwards. The difference is 25 hours. Allow another three hours for monthly review and maintenance, leaving 22 hours of released capacity.
At an assumed loaded hourly cost of A$60, that represents A$1,320 of monthly capacity value. Salaried payroll may remain unchanged. Actual cash savings require a removable expense, such as reduced paid overtime or contractor work.
Use those assumptions to assess the proposed implementation and ongoing costs, then check them against observed operation.
Compare proposals by the accepted result
A useful quote makes the starting input, finished work, included systems, exception rules, tests, handover and support understandable. It also states payment milestones and how additional work will be agreed.
Bring real examples to the scoping discussion. A clearly defined first workflow gives both the business and the implementation team a practical basis for delivery, measurement and future expansion.
