A keep, connect or replace review gives every tool you pay for one verdict. Keep a tool when it is the record for something and the team uses it without workarounds. Connect it when you keep it but people retype its information somewhere else. Replace it when it is paid for and unused, when it duplicates another record, or when the team keeps a spreadsheet beside it to make it work. Five steps take about two hours.
A complete list starts from 12 months of statements
Before the meeting, ask someone to export 12 months of card and bank statements and the supplier list from your accounting software. Twelve months, because annual plans show up once a year and a list built from memory misses them. Invite the owner and one person from each team: the people who use the tools every day, as well as the people who bought them.
Step 1: List every tool, its cost and its users (20 minutes)
Build the list from the statements. Add the spreadsheets and shared folders that act as systems, such as the tracker tab someone updates every Friday. For each tool, note three things: the monthly cost, the number of paid seats and the number of people who used it last week. Many tools show each user’s last sign-in date in their admin settings.
Each kind of information needs exactly one home
This step decides the rest, because a tool’s verdict depends on whether it is the record for something.
Step 2: Name the system of record for each kind of information (30 minutes)
List the kinds of information your business runs on: clients, deals, jobs or projects, hours, invoices and documents. For each one, write down the single tool that holds the official version. That tool is its system of record.
If two tools compete for the same kind of information, write the conflict down and treat it as the most important finding of the review. When two tools both hold job status, people trust neither and ask each other instead.
Three verdicts, each with a reason, settle every tool
The three rules below cover every tool on the list. The reason written next to each verdict is what stops the same debate from coming back next quarter.
Step 3: Give every tool a verdict (40 minutes)
Apply these rules:
- Keep a tool if it is the system of record for something, the team uses it and nobody works around it.
- Connect a tool if you keep it but its information is retyped elsewhere. Note which tool it should feed and which way the information flows.
- Replace a tool if it is paid for but unused, if it duplicates another system of record, or if the team keeps a spreadsheet beside it to make it work. Replacing often means moving the work into a tool you already keep, then canceling.
Write one sentence of reason next to each verdict. A verdict without a reason gets reopened next month.
The first connections to build are the ones with the most retyping behind them
A canceled seat saves the same amount every month. A connection saves more as the company grows, because retyping happens on every job.
Step 4: Rank the connections by hours saved (20 minutes)
For each tool marked “connect”, estimate the minutes of retyping the connection would remove each week, and how many people do that retyping. Multiply them, and rank the connections by hours saved. The top two or three are your first integration projects.
Step 5: Check the verdicts with the people who use the tools (10 minutes)
Read the sheet to one person from each team and ask one question: would anything here break your week? Adjust the verdict where the answer is yes, and write down why.
Illustration: one connection removes 3 hours of retyping a week
A 25-person field-services company lists 14 tools from its statements, including a job tracker spreadsheet the office updates every Friday. The verdicts are 8 keep, 4 connect and 2 replace.
| Tool | Verdict | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduling platform | Connect | Record for jobs; details retyped into invoices |
| CRM | Connect | Record for clients; details retyped into scheduling |
| Time tracker | Connect | Hours retyped into accounting weekly |
| E-signature tool | Connect | Signed quotes retyped into the CRM |
| Accounting software | Keep | Record for invoices; no workarounds |
| Project tool | Replace | 2 of 11 paid seats used last week |
| Job tracker spreadsheet | Replace | Second record for job status |
| 7 other tools | Keep | Used daily, no workarounds |
Source: Verticulate illustration
The two replacements share a cause: both are second homes for job information. The project tool is used by 2 of its 11 paid seats, and the spreadsheet is a second record for job status. Both move into job pages in the scheduling platform the office already works in, which becomes the one record for jobs.
Connecting the scheduling platform to accounting removes about 3 hours a week of invoice retyping, more than the other three connections together. It becomes the first integration project. The review itself took about two hours.
Four mistakes bring the old problems back under a new tool
Each one ends with a verdict that looks decisive and leaves the retyping or the confusion in place.
Mistake 1: Replacing a tool to fix a process problem
A project tool that nobody updates can be a process problem first: nobody agreed who updates it, when, or what for. A new tool inherits the same gap. Map the process before you replace the tool. Map one process in an afternoon shows how.
Mistake 2: Keeping two records “for now”
When two tools hold the same information, choose one in the meeting and set a date to retire the other. For every week both stay, someone has to work out which one is right.
Mistake 3: Counting seats and skipping the connections
Unused seats are the quickest saving to find, and the easiest place to stop. Retyping between the tools you keep grows with every job, so put a number on it before you call the review done. The test above shows how.
Mistake 4: Canceling before the data and automations move
Before you cancel a tool, export its data, check which automations and reports read from it, and tell the people who use it what replaces it and when. A canceled tool that fed a monthly report is otherwise discovered the month the report breaks.