Five Business Tasks You Should Probably Stop Doing Manually

Small businesses often rely on repetitive processes simply because those processes have always been done that way. Someone downloads a spreadsheet, copies information into another system, renames files, sends the same email or manually creates a report every week.

Individually, these tasks may only take a few minutes. Over the course of a year, they can consume a surprising amount of time.

Automation does not necessarily mean replacing an entire business system. Sometimes a relatively simple application or script can eliminate hours of repetitive work.

1. Moving information between systems

If employees regularly copy information from one application into another, there may be an opportunity to automate the process. APIs can allow applications to exchange information directly, while scripts can sometimes handle repetitive data-processing tasks when an API is not available.

2. Creating recurring reports

Weekly and monthly reports are good candidates for automation. Instead of repeatedly collecting information, organizing it and creating the same report, a program can retrieve the necessary data and generate a consistent report automatically.

3. Processing spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are useful, but businesses often spend considerable time sorting, formatting and combining them. Many of these operations can be automated while still producing an Excel or CSV file employees can use normally.

4. Organizing files and documents

Renaming files, creating folders and moving documents based on predefined rules are simple examples of tasks that software can handle quickly and consistently.

5. Sending routine notifications

Applications can automatically send notifications when something happens: an order is received, inventory reaches a certain level, a deadline approaches or information in a database changes.

The goal of automation should not be automation for its own sake. A good solution starts by identifying a repetitive process, determining how much time it consumes and deciding whether technology can simplify it without creating unnecessary complexity.

For a small business, sometimes the best technology solution isn’t a massive new software platform. It is a small tool that eliminates one frustrating task employees have been doing manually for years.