Which business processes to automate first
By the Elevate IT Solutions team · Updated
Start with the one process that costs your team the most time each week, and that follows clear rules. Score each candidate on how often it happens, how long it takes, what a mistake costs and whether it runs on rules or judgement. Automate it, measure the time saved, then move to the next.
If you are deciding which business processes to automate first, pick the one that costs your team the most time each week and follows the same steps every time. Do one process, do it well, and measure the result. Then choose the next.
That sounds simple, and it is. The hard part is choosing. This guide gives you a short way to score your list, some common first candidates, what to leave alone for now, and where AI fits.
We are the Elevate IT Solutions team, and we help growing businesses with exactly this decision. This guide is part of our Streamline hub on automation and AI.
Key takeaways
- Automate one process first: the one that costs the most time and follows the same steps every time.
- Score each candidate from 1 to 3 on frequency, total weekly time, cost of a mistake and how rules-based it is.
- Leave unclear, unstable or judgement-heavy work alone for now.
- Use AI for drafting, summarizing and sorting only, with a person checking the result.
Start with one process
Starting with one process keeps the work small enough to finish and clear enough to judge. You can see whether it worked, learn what your systems allow, and fix problems before they spread.
Automating five things at once is a risk. You may end up with five half-finished things, with nobody sure which one broke and nobody trusting any of them.
Our approach is the same one we describe on our business automation page:
- Pick the one process that costs the most time.
- Map it, so everyone agrees how it works today.
- Automate it, and test it with the people who use it.
- Measure the time saved.
- Only then move to the next process.
The measuring step matters most. Without it, you only have a hunch that things got better.
Score each process before you automate it
Score each candidate on four questions, from 1 (low) to 3 (high). Add the scores. The process with the highest total is usually your best first choice.
You do not need special software. A spreadsheet and fifteen minutes with the people who do the work is enough. For the time question, add up the minutes every person spends on the job in a typical week, then pick the band.
The four questions
| Question | Score 1 | Score 2 | Score 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| How often does it happen? | About once a month | Weekly | Daily, or many times a day |
| How much time does it take each week, all people combined? | Under 1 hour a week | 1 to 3 hours a week | More than 3 hours a week |
| What does a mistake cost? | Harmless and easy to fix | Rework or an unhappy customer | Lost money, a missed deadline or a compliance problem |
| Does it run on rules? (high means rules-based) | A person must weigh up each case | Mostly clear rules, with some exceptions | The same input always leads to the same action |
How to read the total
The lowest possible total is 4 and the highest is 12. A total of 10 to 12 is a strong first candidate. A total of 7 to 9 is worth doing soon. Anything lower can wait.
Be careful with the last question. A process can score high on the first three and still be a poor first choice if it runs on judgement. Time lost on a job is only worth fixing if software can do the job reliably.
A worked example
Suppose two people each spend twenty minutes every weekday copying new orders from one system into another. Two people times 20 minutes times 5 weekdays is 200 minutes a week, or 3 hours 20 minutes, and one typo can ship the wrong item.
Now compare it with a monthly decision about which suppliers to keep. Say it takes two people about an hour each, once a month, which is well under an hour a week.
| Process | How often | Time per week | Mistake cost | Rules | Total | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Copying new orders between systems | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 11 | Strong first candidate |
| Monthly supplier review | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 | Can wait |
The order copying happens daily (3), takes 3 hours 20 minutes a week, which is over the 3-hour line (3), costs rework and an unhappy customer when it goes wrong (2), and follows steps that never change (3). That is 3 + 3 + 2 + 3 = 11, which lands in the strong band of 10 to 12.
The supplier review scores 1 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 5, because it is rare, takes little weekly time and rests on judgement. That is below 7, so it can wait.
What are the most common first candidates?
The best first candidates are usually boring, repeated jobs that move information from one place to another. Four are common first candidates.
Retyping information between systems
When someone enters the same details into two or three systems, you pay for the same work twice. You also get small differences between records, and nobody knows which one is right.
Because the steps are the same every time, this is worth scoring first. Many systems offer an open API, which is a door a program provides so other programs can talk to it. That lets us connect them so that entering something once updates the rest. We cover this on our custom integrations page.
Approvals stuck in inboxes
A request goes out by email, someone is away, and it sits. Then another person asks where it is, and the whole thing starts again.
An approval that routes itself to the right person, reminds them and records the answer removes the waiting. People still make the decision. The software just carries the request.
Reports pulled together by hand
If somebody spends a day each week copying numbers from several places into one document, that is a strong candidate. The steps are the same each time and the output is predictable.
An automated report builds itself from the source systems. Your people spend their time reading it instead of making it.
Reminders and follow-ups
Jobs that depend on someone remembering are fragile. An invoice chase, a renewal notice or a check-in after a service visit falls through the cracks when a busy day arrives.
Sending these automatically is low risk and easy to test. It is a good first win because the rules are plain: if this happens, send that, on this day.
Which processes should you leave alone for now?
Leave alone anything that is unclear, unstable or rests on human judgement. Automation makes a process faster. It does not make a confusing process clearer.
Hold off on these:
- A process nobody can describe. If two people on your team do it differently, agree on one way first. Then automate that way.
- A process that is about to change. If you are replacing the software, reorganizing the team or changing how you sell, wait until it settles.
- Work that depends on a relationship. A sensitive conversation with a client, a hiring decision or a complaint needs a person.
- A job that happens twice a year. The time saved will not repay the effort of setting it up.
- Anything where an error would be serious and hard to spot. Start with lower-risk jobs, build confidence, then work towards these with checks in place.
You may not need new software to automate
Often you do not. Much of the gain can come from connecting and configuring software you already pay for, because many tools can do more than they are set up to do.
Look at what you have before you shop. If something is missing, a good adviser says so before suggesting anything new. When nothing off the shelf fits, a small custom piece can fill the gap. Check the first option before you reach for the second.
Where AI fits, and where it does not
AI is a reasonable fit for drafting, summarizing and sorting, when a person checks the result. It is a poor fit as the final decision-maker. AI makes mistakes, so the question is not whether it is clever but who checks its work. The NIST AI Risk Management Framework is a voluntary framework businesses can use to think about AI risk.
Reasonable jobs for AI
- Drafting. A first version of an email reply or routine letter, which a person edits before it goes out.
- Summarizing. A long email thread or meeting transcript turned into short points, which a person skims for accuracy.
- Sorting. A suggested category or priority for incoming messages, which a person can change.
Jobs to keep away from AI for now
- Final decisions about hiring, pricing, credit or discipline.
- Anything sent straight to a customer with no human check.
- Tasks where a wrong answer is costly and hard to notice, such as figures that go into your accounts.
- Work involving sensitive information that you have not decided how to handle.
Before staff paste company or customer information into any AI tool, set clear guidance on which tools they may use and what may go in. Without it, people make their own choices, and some will be risky.
Our AI integrations work covers this: finding where AI helps, setting up assistants in the tools you already use, controlling what data they can see, training your staff, and writing down how your business uses AI.
What happens after the first process works?
Once you have measured the time saved, go back to your scored list and pick the next one. Scores change as you learn, so rescore it.
Keep a short record of what you built and how it works, so it never depends on one person's memory. Write down who owns each automation and what to do if it stops working.
A short checklist before you start
- List the repeated jobs your team does by hand each week.
- Ask the people who do them how long each takes.
- Score each on frequency, time, error cost and rules versus judgement.
- Choose the one with the highest score that a clear set of rules can describe.
- Map how it works today, and decide how you will measure the time saved.
- Decide who checks any AI output before it is used.
If you would rather have someone look at your processes with you, you can book a free IT assessment: a 30-minute call and a look at how your business runs.
How we wrote this: from the questions businesses ask about IT, reviewed against the way we work. No outside statistics are used.
More on this topic: Streamline: Business automation and AI
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