Questions to ask before the first call.

No. A diagnostic begins with file uploads only, by default — invoice exports, customer lists, aging reports, quote history. If exports cannot answer the module question, we scope the narrowest access path during kickoff.

Yes. The Signal Check is free: you drop in one invoice export and it shows how much cash is stuck past 60 days, which customers are holding it, how long you wait to get paid, how much of the last year's invoicing came from your five largest customers, and how those figures compare against published small-business data. If your export carries payment dates, it also reads movement — whether payment is drifting, which customers have gone quiet, and what should land in the next 30 days. It reads the file inside your browser tab, so the file never leaves your computer. It is still one export read on its own, not the diagnostic: Summit Signal reads across margin, cash, quote-to-cash, and process, joins your jobs and quotes to your invoices, and ends with a designed report and a 30/60/90-day plan.

Roughly two weeks end to end. The first week covers intake, data upload, and review. The second week is analysis, finding generation, analyst review, and report delivery. The exact timeline is set during your scoping call.

Findings are AI-assisted but human-reviewed. Numbers come from deterministic calculations against your normalized data — never from the model. The AI generates the narrative and the recommendation; an analyst reviews and approves every finding before it reaches your report.

No. Anthropic's commercial terms exclude customer data from model training, and we pass that commitment to you in writing.

You'll get an estimated impact range with a confidence level on each finding — not a guarantee. We don't promise specific savings; we surface where opportunity exists and how confident the evidence is.

You do. The report is yours to share, modify, or distribute internally. Your uploaded data and findings remain under your control; you can request export, correction, or deletion at any time.

We're best fit for packaging/manufacturing, contractors, field services, and local B2B service firms with 10–100 employees. If you sit outside those categories, the scoping call tells us whether the diagnostic will produce useful findings before you commit.

Summit Signal is the data-led operational diagnostic — it reads your existing business data across margin, cash, quote-to-cash, and process to show where you're leaking, delivered as a designed report and a 30/60/90-day plan. The AI Readiness Sprint is the interview-led, AI-focused read — two interview sessions mapping how your work flows and where AI does (or doesn't) earn its place. Start with Summit Signal for the full operational picture; choose the Sprint when the question is specifically about AI. Either fee is credited in full toward the project work that follows: within 60 days of your debrief for Summit Signal, 30 days for the Sprint.

The report is yours, and the recommendations are written so you can take them anywhere: act on the plan in the report with your own team, hand it to a different implementation partner, or ask Summit Labs to build it. If you want help, say so at the debrief and we'll scope the implementation, automation, or custom work the findings point to. We don't gate the recommendations.

Yes. Your Summit Signal fee is credited in full toward any project engagement you book within 60 days of your debrief. That holds for every tier, Snapshot through Hybrid, and for project work: automation builds, Go-Live Assurance, and custom development. The credit appears as its own line on your project quote. The monthly retainer isn't a project, so the credit doesn't apply there.