10 Business Workflows Every Company Should Automate

Automation sounds like the future - but it's been the present for a while now. The tools are here, costs have dropped, and the time savings are enormous.

In this guide, we show you 10 concrete workflows that can be automated in almost any company - with real numbers, specific tools, and realistic implementation times.

Table of Contents

1. Invoice Receipt & Processing
2. Lead Capture & Distribution
3. Employee Onboarding
4. Quote Creation
5. Social Media Posting
6. Appointment Reminders & Follow-ups
7. Reporting & Dashboards
8. Customer Feedback Analysis
9. Order Confirmations & Shipping Info
10. Contract Management

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1. Invoice Receipt & Processing

The Manual Process

1. Receive invoice via email
2. Save attachment
3. Manually capture data
4. Assign cost center
5. Forward for approval
6. Get approval
7. Initiate payment
8. File away

Time required: 10-15 minutes per invoice

The Automated Process

1. Invoice arrives in dedicated mailbox
2. OCR extracts data automatically
3. System assigns cost center (ML-based)
4. Automatic approval request to right approver
5. One-click approval (or automatic below threshold)
6. Payment is prepared
7. Automatic filing

Time required: 1-2 minutes per invoice (verification)

Tools

Tool	Type	Cost/Month
Dext	Specialized	From €12
Bill.com	All-in-One	From €45
Spendesk	All-in-One	From €79
Custom (n8n + OCR)	DIY	€50-€200

ROI Calculation

Metric	Before	After
Time per invoice	12 min	2 min
Invoices/month	200	200
Time/month	40h	6.7h
Savings	-	33.3h = €1,000
Tool costs	-	€100
Net savings	-	€900/month

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2. Lead Capture & Distribution

The Manual Process

1. Lead fills out contact form
2. Email lands in general inbox
3. Someone reads email and creates CRM entry
4. Lead is manually assigned to sales rep
5. Sales rep is informed via email

Problem: Delays of hours to days, leads get forgotten.

The Automated Process

1. Lead fills out form
2. Data goes directly to CRM
3. Automatic lead scoring
4. Assignment by rules (industry, region, size)
5. Immediate notification (email + Slack + app)
6. Automatic follow-up sequence starts

Response time: Under 5 minutes

Implementation with Make/n8n

Trigger: New form submission
↓
Action: Create CRM entry (HubSpot/Pipedrive)
↓
Action: Calculate lead score (based on fields)
↓
Condition: Score > 80?
  → Yes: Immediate notification to Senior Sales
  → No: Standard assignment via round-robin
↓
Action: Send welcome email
↓
Action: Activate follow-up sequence

Tools

Tool	Strength	Cost/Month
HubSpot (Free)	CRM + Workflows	€0-€800
Pipedrive + Zapier	Simple	€30 + €30
Make	Complex	From €9
n8n	Self-hosted	€0-€50

ROI Calculation

Metric	Before	After
Response time	4h	5 min
Conversion rate	8%	15%
Lost leads	15%	2%
More closes	-	+20%

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3. Employee Onboarding

The Manual Process

1. HR creates checklist in Excel
2. IT gets email: "Please create accounts"
3. Someone remembers keys/badge
4. Mentor is informed (or forgotten)
5. Welcome email from CEO (manually written)
6. Chaos on first day

The Automated Process

1. New employee is created in HR system
2. Automatic: IT ticket for accounts
3. Automatic: Email to facility management (badge, keys)
4. Automatic: Mentor is assigned and informed
5. Automatic: Calendar invites for onboarding sessions
6. Automatic: Personalized welcome email
7. Automatic: Reminders to all involved parties

Example Workflow (n8n/Make)

Trigger: New employee in BambooHR/Workday
↓
Parallel:
├─ Create IT ticket in Jira/Freshservice
├─ Email to facility management
├─ Slack message to team + mentor
├─ Create calendar events (Google/Outlook)
├─ Personalized email to new employee
└─ Create tasks in Asana/Monday
↓
Wait: 3 days before start date
↓
Reminder to all: "Complete preparation"
↓
Wait: 1 day after start
↓
Automatic feedback survey

Tools

Tool	Function	Cost/Month
BambooHR + Zapier	HR + Automation	From €6/employee
Rippling	All-in-One	From €8/employee
Make/n8n + Tools	DIY solution	€50-€200

ROI Calculation

Metric	Before	After
HR time per onboarding	8h	2h
Forgotten steps	25%	0%
Time-to-productivity	4 weeks	2 weeks
Employee satisfaction	3.5/5	4.5/5

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4. Quote Creation

The Manual Process

1. Customer inquiry comes in
2. Gather info from various emails/calls
3. Search through product catalog
4. Look up prices (Excel/ERP)
5. Open Word template, customize
6. Create PDF, send via email
7. Don't forget to follow up (hopefully)

Time required: 30-60 minutes per quote

The Automated Process

1. Capture inquiry in CRM
2. Select products/services from catalog
3. Automatic: Calculate prices + discounts
4. Automatic: Generate PDF (branded template)
5. Automatic: Send via email
6. Automatic: Follow-up after 3 days without response
7. Automatic: Tracking (opened, clicked)

Time required: 10-15 minutes

Tools

Tool	Function	Cost/Month
PandaDoc	All-in-One	From €19
Proposify	Design-focused	From €35
HubSpot Quotes	CRM-integrated	From €0
Odoo	ERP-integrated	From €20

ROI Calculation

Metric	Before	After
Time per quote	45 min	12 min
Quotes/week	20	20
Time saved/week	-	11h
Win rate	22%	28%

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5. Social Media Posting

The Manual Process

1. Have content idea
2. Write text
3. Create/find image
4. Post to each platform individually
5. At different times (optimal posting time)
6. Monitor engagement

The Automated Process

1. Create content in central tool
2. Adapt for each platform (automatic suggestions)
3. Automatic: Determine optimal posting time
4. Automatic: Post simultaneously on all platforms
5. Automatic: Performance report

Workflow

Content calendar in Notion/Airtable
↓
Create weekly content batch
↓
Tool generates variations for each platform
↓
Automatic scheduling (best times)
↓
Automatic posting
↓
Weekly performance report via email

Tools

Tool	Platforms	Cost/Month
Buffer	All	From €0 (free)
Hootsuite	All	From €99
Later	Instagram focus	From €18
Publer	Budget-friendly	From €12

ROI Calculation

Metric	Before	After
Time per post	20 min	5 min
Posts per week	10	10
Time saved/week	-	2.5h
Consistency	60%	100%

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6. Appointment Reminders & Follow-ups

The Manual Process

1. Appointment is scheduled
2. Hopefully someone remembers to send reminder
3. Manually write email the day before
4. After appointment: Manual summary
5. Follow-up email (if you remember)

The Automated Process

1. Appointment is booked (Calendly, HubSpot, etc.)
2. Automatic: Confirmation email
3. Automatic: Reminder 24h before
4. Automatic: Reminder 1h before (with meeting link)
5. Automatic: Thank you email after appointment
6. Automatic: Follow-up after 3 days

Workflow

Trigger: Appointment booked in Calendly
↓
Immediate: Confirmation email with details
↓
24h before: Reminder + preparation
↓
1h before: Meeting link + final reminder
↓
After meeting: Thanks + summary (template)
↓
+3 days: Follow-up "How can we help?"

Tools

Tool	Function	Cost/Month
Calendly	Booking + reminders	From €0
HubSpot	CRM + sequences	From €0
Lemlist	Email sequences	From €59
Make/Zapier	DIY	From €9

ROI Calculation

Metric	Before	After
No-show rate	20%	5%
Follow-up rate	40%	100%
Admin time	10 min/appt	0 min
Conversion (meeting→deal)	30%	45%

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7. Reporting & Dashboards

The Manual Process

1. Export Excel data from 5 different sources
2. Build pivot tables
3. Create charts
4. Copy into PowerPoint
5. Send via email
6. Next week: Start all over

The Automated Process

1. Automatic: Pull data from all sources
2. Automatic: Dashboard updates in real-time
3. Automatic: Weekly report delivery
4. Automatic: Alerts on deviations

Implementation

Option A: No-Code BI Tools

• Google Data Studio (free)
• Metabase (open source)
• Power BI

Option B: Automation + BI

Trigger: Every Monday 8:00 AM
↓
Aggregate data from:
├─ Google Analytics
├─ CRM (Deals, Pipeline)
├─ Accounting (Revenue, Costs)
└─ Product data
↓
Generate report (PDF or link)
↓
Email to leadership team
↓
Slack message with key highlights

Tools

Tool	Type	Cost/Month
Google Data Studio	BI	€0
Metabase	BI (OSS)	€0-€85
Power BI	BI	From €8.40
Databox	Aggregator	From €72

ROI Calculation

Metric	Before	After
Time for reporting	4h/week	30 min/week
Data freshness	Weekly	Real-time
Errors in reports	10%	<1%
Decision speed	Slow	Fast

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8. Customer Feedback Analysis

The Manual Process

1. Feedback comes through various channels
2. Someone reads emails, support tickets, reviews
3. Important stuff gets forwarded (or forgotten)
4. Quarterly someone "summarizes"

The Automated Process

1. Automatic: Collect feedback from all channels
2. Automatic: Sentiment analysis (positive/negative/neutral)
3. Automatic: Categorization (product, service, price)
4. Automatic: Alerts on negative feedback
5. Automatic: Weekly trend report

Workflow

Monitor sources:
├─ Email (feedback@...)
├─ Support tickets (Zendesk)
├─ Google Reviews
├─ Trustpilot
└─ NPS surveys
↓
Sentiment analysis (GPT/Claude API)
↓
Categorization
↓
Condition: Sentiment = negative?
  → Alert to Customer Success
↓
Weekly: Update trend dashboard

Tools

Tool	Function	Cost/Month
Typeform + Zapier	Surveys	From €25
MonkeyLearn	Sentiment	From €299
GPT-4 API	Analysis	~€50
Make/n8n	Orchestration	From €9

ROI Calculation

Metric	Before	After
Response time negative feedback	48h	1h
Churn reduction	-	-15%
Customer satisfaction	3.8	4.3
Time for evaluation	8h/month	1h/month

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9. Order Confirmations & Shipping Info

The Manual Process

1. Order comes in
2. Someone sends confirmation (copy-paste)
3. Goods are shipped
4. Tracking number is manually communicated
5. Customer asks: "Where is my package?"

The Automated Process

1. Order comes in
2. Automatic: Personalized confirmation email
3. Automatic: Status update on shipment
4. Automatic: Tracking link with live tracking
5. Automatic: Delivery confirmation
6. Automatic: Feedback request after receipt

Workflow

Trigger: New order
↓
Immediate: Confirmation email with details
↓
Trigger: Status = "Shipped" (webhook from logistics)
↓
Immediate: Shipping email with tracking
↓
Trigger: Package delivered (tracking API)
↓
Immediate: Delivery confirmation
↓
+3 days: "How do you like the product?"

Tools

Tool	Function	Cost/Month
Shopify (built-in)	All integrated	From €29
Klaviyo	E-commerce email	From €20
AfterShip	Tracking	From €11
Make + APIs	DIY	From €9

ROI Calculation

Metric	Before	After
"Where is my package?" inquiries	30%	5%
Support tickets	200/month	50/month
Customer satisfaction	4.0	4.7
Repeat purchase rate	20%	28%

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10. Contract Management

The Manual Process

1. Contract is created (Word)
2. Back and forth via email until signature
3. File signed PDF somewhere
4. Hopefully someone remembers renewal
5. Termination deadlines are missed

The Automated Process

1. Generate contract from template
2. Automatic: Send e-sign request
3. Automatic: Reminders if signature is pending
4. Automatic: Signed contract is archived
5. Automatic: Calendar reminder for renewal/termination
6. Automatic: Alert 90/60/30 days before deadline

Workflow

Trigger: New deal "Won" in CRM
↓
Generate contract from template (data from CRM)
↓
Send e-sign request (DocuSign/PandaDoc)
↓
Wait for signature (reminder after 3/7 days)
↓
Trigger: Contract signed
↓
Archive contract (Google Drive/SharePoint)
↓
Create reminders:
├─ 90 days before contract end
├─ 60 days before contract end
└─ 30 days before contract end

Tools

Tool	Function	Cost/Month
PandaDoc	Creation + E-Sign	From €19
DocuSign	E-Sign	From €10
Contractbook	Lifecycle	From €29
Make/n8n	Orchestration	From €9

ROI Calculation

Metric	Before	After
Time to signature	7 days	1 day
Missed termination deadlines	3/year	0/year
Admin time per contract	45 min	10 min
Legal security	Questionable	High

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Conclusion: Where to Start?

The Quick Wins (1-2 weeks implementation)

1. Appointment reminders - Immediately fewer no-shows
2. Social media posting - Immediately more consistency
3. Lead capture - Immediately faster response

The High-Impact Projects (4-8 weeks)

1. Invoice processing - Highest ROI
2. Onboarding - Best impression
3. Reporting - Better decisions

Next Step

Identify the workflow that costs you the most time - and start there. At Balane Tech, we help you identify and automate the right processes. Free consultation