What to Automate in Your Company: 9 Processes
Choose an automation candidate by repetition, rules, volume and the cost of manual work. This guide maps nine common processes, their owner and stopping conditions, with AI automation starting from €3,500 net.
Start with a process whose repetition, rules and manual cost can be measured. Choose the tool after the process has earned the investment.
The first automation candidate is a process the company repeats often enough to measure. It has an available source of truth, named rules, manageable exceptions and a person who owns the result. AI automations at Syntalith start from €3,500 net; typical production builds range from €6,000 to €35,000 net. The process determines the actual scope.
Conditions for a good candidate
Score a process against four questions:
- Repetition: does it occur every day or week?
- Rules: can an experienced employee describe the normal path and exceptions?
- Volume: are there enough cases to compare the current effort with the build and running cost?
- Ownership: can one person approve access, review the result and change the process?
Add a fifth check for the cost of a wrong action. A draft email and a payment instruction have different review needs, even when both start in an inbox.
Calculate the current manual cost
Use your own observations:
Annual manual cost = hours per week x loaded hourly rate x 52Record the range over two or three ordinary weeks. Add rework, waiting time and errors when they have a measurable effect. Then compare four lines:
- build and implementation,
- model or provider usage,
- maintenance and change requests,
- review time that remains with the team.
The calculation supports a decision. It does not promise a particular return. A process with a high manual cost can still be unsuitable if the data source is unstable or an incorrect action carries serious consequences.
Nine process candidates
| Process | Useful first output | Owner and safeguard | Typical route |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Shared inbox triage | Label, priority, suggested reply and assignment | Customer-service lead; a person sends replies and handles sensitive cases | Rules or automation from €3,500 net |
| 2. Invoice and document entry | Extracted fields linked to the source document | Finance lead; confidence check and approval before posting | Document workflow with a review queue |
| 3. Lead qualification | Required fields, fit questions and next action | Sales lead; salesperson approves the stage and message | CRM automation and optional model classification |
| 4. Quote preparation | Draft offer from approved products, terms and margins | Commercial owner; final price and terms stay with a person | Automation or a custom app from €6,000 net |
| 5. Recurring management reports | Source-linked table, variance and questions for review | Controller or department head; source and period appear on every figure | Scheduled data preparation and report delivery |
| 6. Meeting actions | Decisions, tasks, owners and due dates from an approved transcript | Meeting owner; participants correct the record | Note processing with human confirmation |
| 7. Receivables reminders | Account list, due date and approved reminder draft | Finance lead; disputes and escalation require review | Rule-led workflow with an approval queue |
| 8. Order entry | Validated order fields sent to the ERP | Operations lead; stock, price and customer exceptions stop the flow | ERP automation; an agent only when the path has real branching |
| 9. Internal knowledge requests | Answer with source, date and owner | Knowledge owner; missing source becomes an escalation | Search and answer layer over approved documents |
These are starting patterns. Your systems, permissions, volume and exception rate decide whether the process belongs in a simple automation, a custom application or a human workflow.
Pick the first process
Rank candidates with a small scorecard:
| Factor | Question |
|---|---|
| Manual cost | How many hours and errors occur in a normal period? |
| Data quality | Is the source complete, current and accessible? |
| Rule clarity | Can the team name normal cases and exceptions? |
| Review effort | How much checking remains after automation? |
| Business risk | What is the cost of a wrong action? |
| Owner | Who can approve, measure and change the process? |
Choose the candidate with a strong combination of manual cost, source quality and rule clarity. A small process with a clear owner usually teaches more than a company-wide project with no stable source.
Test before expanding
Define a representative task set before building. Include ordinary cases, known exceptions, missing fields and a case that should stop. Agree on:
- the source of truth,
- the output format,
- the quality check,
- the review owner,
- the response-time target,
- the date for the continuation decision.
Run the process with a person reviewing every case. Compare the baseline with the same measures after the test. Expand only when the owner can explain the remaining exceptions and the team can support the new path.
Keep consequential decisions owned
Automation can prepare a reply, extract a field, classify a request or assemble a report. A person should own a payment, a contractual term, a customer commitment, a personnel decision or a change to a production record. The exact review point belongs in the process map and in the system permissions.
For model-led steps, record the input source, the model or provider, the output, the reviewer and the reason for escalation. A clear record makes maintenance and incident review possible.
Questions buyers ask
Before contacting a supplier, write down:
- Which process consumes the most measured time?
- Where is its source of truth?
- Which cases must stop for human review?
- Who owns the process and its data?
- Which cost lines will continue after launch?
- What result would justify expanding the test?
The AI app, agent or automation guide helps choose the mechanism. A free process scan takes 30 minutes with an engineer and ends with a written takeaway within two business days. If a ready tool already covers the task, the recommendation can be to keep the purchase small.
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Frequently asked questions
- What should a company automate first?
- Choose one recurring process with clear rules, enough volume and a measurable manual cost. Shared inbox work, document entry or follow-up can qualify. Use your own hours, error rate and exceptions to rank candidates, then test one process before expanding.
- Which business processes are good automation candidates?
- Good candidates repeat, have an available source of truth, follow named rules and send unusual cases to a person. Common examples include inbox triage, document entry, quote preparation, reports, CRM follow-up, payment reminders, order entry, meeting actions and internal knowledge requests.
- How much does business process automation cost?
- AI automations at Syntalith start from €3,500 net. Typical production builds run from €6,000 to €35,000 net. A process that crosses systems and needs model-led decisions may require an AI agent from €6,000 net. The final quote follows the process and safeguards.
- How do I calculate whether automation can pay back?
- Multiply hours spent per week by the loaded hourly rate and by 52. Add rework, delays and material errors where you can measure them. Compare that annual cost with the build, provider and maintenance cost. The result is a decision aid rather than a guarantee.
- When should a company keep a process manual?
- Keep it manual when it happens rarely, the rules change faster than the team can document them, the source data is unreliable or the cost of a wrong action exceeds the available control. A free process scan can help choose a safer first process.
Free process scan
Start with a free process scan.
- A 30-minute call with the engineer who would lead the work.
- A review of the processes that cost you the most time and money.
- A written summary of what to automate first and the likely cost range.
The scan chooses one process to assess, and within 2 business days you receive a recommendation, including when a simpler route is the better fit.
€0
30 minutes · written takeaway within 2 business days
Times are shown in your own time zone. We work with clients across time zones.
Describe the process in the form