15 Business Processes You Can Automate

These are common automation opportunities we see across businesses — not a list of projects we've necessarily built for every reader's exact situation. Think of each one as a pattern worth checking for in your own operations, not a guarantee of what any specific engagement includes.

Sales & marketing

1. Lead capture — new form submissions, ad leads, or chat conversations automatically create a CRM record instead of arriving in an inbox
2. Lead routing — leads are assigned to the right rep automatically based on territory, product interest, or workload
3. CRM updates — deal stage, notes, and activity logs update automatically from email or calendar activity instead of manual entry
4. Follow-up sequences — timed email or SMS sequences run automatically until a lead responds or a deadline passes
5. Sales notifications — reps and managers get an automatic alert the moment a deal changes stage or a high-value lead comes in

Operations & customer support

1. Customer support triage — incoming tickets are automatically categorized and routed to the right queue
2. Document processing — data is extracted automatically from PDFs (invoices, contracts, forms) instead of retyped by hand
3. Scheduling — appointment or meeting booking happens directly against a calendar without back-and-forth emails
4. Order/fulfillment workflows — a purchase automatically triggers fulfillment, tracking updates, and customer notifications
5. Inventory alerts — stock levels are monitored automatically and trigger reorder workflows at defined thresholds

Finance & reporting

1. Invoice workflows — incoming invoices are extracted, matched, and routed for approval automatically
2. Reporting — recurring reports pull live from source systems on a schedule instead of being assembled by hand
3. Reconciliation — transactions across systems (bank, processor, accounting software) are matched automatically, with only exceptions flagged for review

HR & internal operations

1. Onboarding — new-hire account provisioning, welcome sequences, and document collection run from a single trigger event
2. Internal approvals — requests (time off, expenses, purchases) route automatically to the right approver based on rules

How to tell if one of these applies to you

Not every item on this list is worth automating for every business — it depends on volume and how much manual time it currently costs. A process that happens twice a month isn't usually worth the setup investment; the same process happening fifty times a week almost always is. The fastest way to know is to actually track, for a week or two, how much time your team spends on each of these categories.