How To Automate Business Tasks

As a small business owner you likely have a lot on your plate — and there are only so many hours in a day. Automation can help you use your time better by taking care of routine, repetitive tasks.

The right tools can do things like manage inventory, send invoices and organize your data. That means you have more time to focus on the big picture stuff, like growing your business.

How to automate business tasks

To automate business tasks, you should identify repetitive tasks that take up a lot of your time and choose a tool that can help you get them done. You don’t need to automate everything at once. Start small and choose one task you want to get off your plate. Here’s a simple framework that can help you get started.

1. List out the repetitive tasks. Take a minute to examine the work that you and your employees do on a regular basis, from data entry to appointment reminders.
2. Estimate the time cost. After you’ve listed out your tasks, estimate how much time you spend on each one on average. Ask yourself if it’s worth the time spent. This can help you identify which tasks to automate.
3. Choose a tool. There are a ton of automation tools available. Look for small business friendly options with good support, clear pricing and straightforward setups.
4. Set it up. Once you’ve chosen a tool you’ll need to integrate it into your workflow. You’ll likely have to set up some rules for it to follow and get it connected with your system. Some tools may come with a support team that can help you with onboarding.
5. Test it out. When the tool has been set up, make sure to test it out. Estimate how much time it’s saving and how it’s impacted efficiency.
6. Keep going. Once you have one task automated, you can move on to the next on your list. Keep in mind that some tools may be able to help automate multiple tasks.

What business tasks can be automated?

Many businesses have functions that repeat daily, weekly or monthly. These types of tasks are great candidates for automation. If it follows the same steps every time, there’s probably a tool out there that can help.

Marketing Tasks You Can Automate

Marketing is important, but it can also take time you don’t always have. Here are a few marketing tasks you can automate so your customers will hear from you, even when you’re focused on everything else.

Email marketing. There are many email marketing platforms available that allow you to set up welcome emails, promotions or follow-ups to send automatically. You can program them to deliver when a customer joins a list, makes a purchase and more. Creating these types of campaigns can help you stay in touch without having to write a message from scratch every time.

Social media. You can use automation tools to schedule social media posts. This lets you create your content ahead of time and have it post throughout the month. Meaning you stay visible without having to log in every day.

A/B testing. You can automate A/B testing by creating different versions of an email and testing to see which one performs better. You can try things like different subject lines, offers or text messages.

Reporting. You can automate different reports to keep track of how your marketing efforts are doing.

Customer Support Tasks You Can Automate

Task automation can also help you streamline your customer service. Here are a few basic ways you can automate tasks for customer support.

Instant replies. Set up automatic replies so customers aren’t waiting on a response — even after hours.

FAQ chatbots. You can create a chatbot on your site that helps answer quick customer questions about things like hours, return policies or service details.

Route messages to the right person. Send customer inquiries to the right person on your team based on the topic.

Financial Tasks You Can Automate

Staying on top of your businesses finances can be a time-consuming task. However, there are few things you can automate to help with efficiency.

Invoice reminders. Set up automatic communications that let your customers know when it’s time to pay.

Payroll. There are many apps that let you automate payroll so you’re not bogged down every time payday rolls around.

Paying bills. Schedule recurring payments for rent, utilities or vendors so they go out automatically and on schedule.

Administrative Tasks You Can Automate

You can set up tools that help you create automated workflows for administrative tasks. Take care of things like scheduling, appointment reminders and basic paperwork.

Employee scheduling. You can use tools to help you create schedules for your staff. Many also let them view their schedules, request time off and get updates automatically.

Appointment reminders. You can send automatic texts or email reminders to your customers when they have an appointment coming up.

Digital signatures. You can send digital contracts and forms and get notifications when they’ve been completed so you don’t have to spend time chasing down paperwork.

What business automation tools are available?

You don’t need a bunch of complicated software to start automating the manual tasks you do everyday. There are plenty of automation platforms that can help you find time savings and simplify complex tasks.

Email Tools

MailChimp. MailChimp is a well-known and beginner friendly email automation system. It can help you create email campaigns, build landing pages and track your performance.

Constant Contact. Constant Contact is another email tool. It’s known for making it easy to set up email campaigns, schedule social posts and run basic automations like birthday or reminder emails.

Brevo. Brevo can be a good tool for transactional emails in addition to marketing emails. It also has CRM features that can be useful.

Scheduling Tools

Calendly. Calendly is an easy to use tool that lets people book time on your calendar based on your availability — no back-and-forth emails.

Square Appointments. If your business uses Square, you may have access to their scheduling tools that lets customers schedule online, get automatic confirmations and pay in advance.

GoReminders. GoReminders lets you send automatic appointment reminders by text or email.

Homebase. Homebase is an employee scheduling tool that can help you build employee schedules, track hours and manage shift changes.

Payroll and Accounting Tools

QuickBooks. QuickBooks is a well-known software that helps businesses organize and keep track of their finances. It can help you handle invoicing, expense tracking, bill payments and you can add on payroll services as well.

Gusto. Gusto was designed to help small businesses with payroll. It can automate direct deposits, tax filings, benefits and more. It also has an employee self-service feature that can help cut down on the back and forth.

Wave. Wave is a free tool that can work well for small teams or sole proprietors who need help with invoicing, payments and basic bookkeeping.

Social Media Tools

Buffer. Buffer is a simple social media scheduler for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and more. It’s easy to use and can be helpful for businesses who post a few times a week.

Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a more advanced tool. It allows you to schedule posts but you also get access to analytics and performance.

Meta business suite. The Meta business suite is free and built directly into Meta’s social media platforms. It lets you schedule posts, respond to messages and track performance.

Customer Support Tools

Zendesk. Zendesk helps you keep track of customer requests across email, chat and social media. It allows you to set up auto replies, route questions to the right person and keep track of what’s been answered.

Freshdesk. Freshdesk is similar to Zendesk but it’s generally thought to be more beginner friendly. It’s good for small teams that want to manage support tickets, set up FAQs and automate follow-ups.

Tidio. Tidio lets you add a chatbot to your site that can automatically answer FAQs and hand off complex questions to a real person.

Project Management Tools

Trello. Trello lets you automate routine project steps by setting up simple “if this, then that” rules. You can auto-assign tasks, drag-and-drop items between lists, set due dates and send reminders.

Asana. Asana can help you keep projects moving by letting you automatically assign tasks, send reminders and adjust due dates based on rules you’ve set up.

ClickUp. ClickUp gives you a lot of control over the automation. You can set up rules to assign tasks, update statuses, trigger alerts or create recurring workflows.

How can AI help automate business tasks?

AI-powered tools can help take automation to the next level — handling more complex tasks that require decision making and not just those that follow the same steps every time. Here are some things artificial intelligence can help with.

Answering customer questions. AI chatbots can handle customer requests beyond just the FAQs. They can help handle questions when team members aren’t available.

Creating content. AI can help you optimize the content creation process. If you’re stuck about what to write your next blog on, don’t know how to phrase something in an email or just need to brainstorm ideas, you can use AI to get inspiration.

Summarizing and analyzing data. AI can help you pull insights and key details from your data. Whether you have a large spreadsheet or a detailed document, AI can help you identify key themes and other patterns.

Many automation solutions now come with AI features — helping you move faster with less effort.

Where can I get business funding to buy automation tools?

You can find automation tools that are free to start, but many of them cost money — especially if you’re upgrading systems, training new employees or buying multiple tools. Small business loans can help you get the right tool for your business.

Business line of credit. A business line of credit provides borrowers with ongoing access to funds. If approved, you’ll get access to a credit limit you can draw from as needed. As you repay, the funds become available to borrow again.

Business term loans. A business term loan gives borrowers an upfront lump sum of cash that can be repaid over time in smaller installments. Business term loans can be good for large, one-time expenses.

What does it mean to automate business tasks?

Automating your business means using tools or software to do repeatable, simple tasks without you needing to do it yourself every time. It’s about setting up systems that handle things for you and free up your time.

For example, instead of sending the same follow-up email every week, you write it once and set it to send automatically. Instead of updating a spreadsheet every time a sale closes, your software fills it in for you.

Why is it important to automate business tasks?

Automating business tasks is important because it reduces the amount of manual work you and your team need to do. When you’re running a business, your time is precious and automating routine tasks can help you use it more efficiently. It handles the mundane tasks so you can focus on the big picture and get real, impactful work done to grow your business.

The Bottom Line

Small business owners don’t get extra hours in the day, but automation can help you use your time better. You don’t need to automate everything, but you can start small and build as you save more and more time. The right tools will help you take care of the repeatable stuff so you can use your time where it’s most effective.