What to automate first in your business

Most teams know they lose hours to repetitive work. The harder question is where to start. A few simple checks will point you to the right first project.

Start with work that is frequent and rule based

Look for tasks that happen every day or every week, follow the same steps each time and do not need much judgement. Sorting incoming enquiries, copying details from one app into another, sending confirmations and preparing routine reports are common examples.

Check what happens when it goes wrong

Some tasks are safe to automate fully, because a mistake is cheap and easy to spot. Others should keep a person in the loop, for example anything that involves money, contracts or sensitive customer messages. In those cases the automation prepares the work and a person approves it.

Rank your candidates

List the tasks you are considering and ask four questions about each one:

• How often does it happen?
• How long does one run take?
• How many people touch it?
• What is the cost of getting it wrong?

Tasks that are frequent, slow, shared across several people and low risk usually make the best first project.

Start small, then expand

Pick one workflow, build it, and watch how it behaves with real data. Once your team trusts it, the next one is much easier to plan, because you already know how the pieces connect.

Not sure where to begin?

Describe the process to us and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth automating, and what the simplest version would look like.