What business processes should you automate first?
Flow HQ · · 6 min read
Automate first the processes that are frequent, rule-based, digital and close to revenue — like lead follow-up, onboarding and invoicing. Leave judgement-heavy and rarely repeated work for later, or for people.
Score each process on four questions
List the processes your team repeats, then score each one from 1 to 3 on four questions:
- Frequency — how often does it happen? (daily scores higher than monthly)
- Rules — are the steps the same almost every time?
- Digital — do the inputs already arrive in a tool (email, form, chat, sheet)?
- Impact — does delay or error cost money or customers?
Add the scores. Processes scoring 10–12 are strong first candidates; 7–9 are worth a look; below 7, leave them for now.
Common first candidates
- Enquiry response and follow-up — high frequency, clear rules, directly tied to revenue.
- Customer onboarding — the same welcome, forms and first tasks for every new customer.
- Invoicing and payment reminders — predictable timing, easy to get wrong when busy.
- Data entry between tools — copying details from forms or email into a sheet or CRM.
- Recurring reports — numbers pulled from the same places every week.
What to leave alone (for now)
- Processes that happen a few times a year — the setup effort rarely pays back.
- Work where every case is different, such as custom proposals or complaints.
- Processes nobody can describe yet — fix the process before you automate it.
A worked example
Take a hypothetical consultancy that receives around 30 enquiries a week. Replies take half a day on average, and there's no follow-up if a prospect goes quiet. Frequency 3, rules 3, digital 3 (enquiries arrive by form and email), impact 3 — a perfect 12. Monthly management reporting, by contrast, scores 1 for frequency and only 2 for impact. Enquiry handling goes first.
Example figures are illustrative, not from a real client.