ZV / Automation
Which job eats the week?
The same thing gets typed twice, and paperwork gets chased by hand. The month takes days to close. Pick the loop you want gone.
- Purchase orderLine items keyed in from a PDFCustomer orders arrive as attachments and become sales orders by hand.
- Price sheetVendor costs updated by hand, lateA manufacturer raised prices. The table in your system didn't, until someone merged a spreadsheet.
None of those? About 3 minutes to run the numbers.
Run the numbersAutomation for wholesale and distribution
Line items keyed in from a PDF
Customer orders arrive as attachments and become sales orders by hand.
Number to bringHow many PDF orders a day, and how long does one take?
Vendor costs updated by hand, late
A manufacturer raised prices. The table in your system didn't, until someone merged a spreadsheet.
Number to bringHow many hours a week does someone spend updating vendor cost tables?
Bring those two numbers
About three minutes. You type the numbers; I do not invent them. The first conversation is next if the loop is worth mapping.
Work you want to stop doing by hand
- Document and invoice intakeFields come off the purchase order and into the system of record, mapped to catalog items. Anything the extraction can’t identify stops in a queue for a named person.
- Stop double entry between systemsA customer record gets one home. The other systems receive a controlled copy, and anything ambiguous waits for the person who owns it.
- Inbound enquiry triageIncoming orders and requests land in one queue, sorted by what they are and who should answer.
- Close preparationMonth-end becomes a visible process with owners and blockers instead of a scavenger hunt.
- Finish the workflow you already boughtCheck what the software you licence already does before building anything. Add only the part that is genuinely missing.
- Automation inventory and cleanupOne pass over the small automations already running: what each one does, whose login it uses, what breaks quietly. You get a written register and a decommission list.
Worth reading
The language of business automation
13 minute read
What should your company automate—and when?
11 minute read
What happens to the workflows when someone leaves
4 minute read
A different kind of business
Next step
Tell me which one it is
The first conversation is free, and it’s genuinely fine to arrive without knowing what you need.