Organizations can streamline critical business processes and reduce the time required to manage multiple tasks for a single process through business process automation (BPA). With business automation system development, businesses can improve efficiencies and overall productivity. Read more here.
Business Process Automation Use Cases
Manual processes usually have a higher turnaround time and processing costs, while BPA focuses on automating various process management elements.
1. Purchase orders
Purchase orders play an integral part in the overall procurement process. They enable businesses to procure the service or goods that are required for operations. This is how purchase orders requests are filled manually:
- You fill out a form and forward it to purchasing.
- The request is then approved or denied based on criteria and sent back to you.
- A PO is generated if the request is approved and copies are sent to the supplier.
This process is prolonged due to various physical forms and manual data entry, and employees have to spend hours filling out the same purchase orders repetitively.
Through BPA, businesses can digitize their purchase order forms and link them to a SQL database for easier access to customer information. You can organize your forms in an automated workflow to route all orders to the approver in charge of that task. Hence, BPA effectively reduces the labor hours required to complete these processes manually.
2. Invoices
Managing invoices on a daily basis is an exhausting process that can lead to errors when handled manually. BPA can automate the processing of invoices to ensure that all payments to vendors are released on a timely basis. Automated invoicing does not only remove human dependency on invoice processing, but it also reduces the chance of inaccuracy and human error in the payment process.
The approval of an invoice can take a lot of time. You can transform google forms into interactive workflows with the help of workflow management to accelerate approvals and reduce the risk of human error. You should learn how to use Google Forms to get the most out of it.
Using BPA, businesses can send a link to an invoice to their consultants or supplier to fill out instead of sending attachments by email. Once the supplier submits the invoice, it is automatically routed to the manager for review and finally to the finance team for payment.
3. Managing Customer Service Requests
Customer service is the most crucial element of a satisfactory customer experience, which is why it has to be efficient.
Tasks such as:
- Sorting queries
- Assigning queries to customer service reps
- Responding to customer messages and emails
Customer service tasks are multi-layered, complex, and quite challenging to handle in a timely manner. Therefore process automation is an ideal solution that can simplify these tasks, ensuring that all customer support tickets are resolved quickly.
With BPA, you can create standard replies (based on keywords or phrases) to general problems that can be sent to customers automatically.
4. Employee Onboarding
Hiring and onboarding employees require a lot of time and resources. From filling out forms, scheduling training sessions, to collecting all relevant documents, and assigning mentors, adding employees to a company is a multi-step process.
A good onboarding process is essential to engaging new employees and leaving a positive first impression. The quicker the process is completed, the sooner they become productive. However, with manual processes, employees have to fill out stacks of forms on their first day leading to longer proficiency times.
Business process automation can simplify onboarding tasks like:
- Collecting employee data.
- Automatically delivering forms.
- Filling out official W4 and I9 forms.
- Setting up payroll and employee benefits.
- Conducting on-demand training sessions.
With BPA, you can create an automated workflow that directs new hires to the various onboarding steps that can be filled out and signed from any device. The gathered data could be routed automatically to the concerned departments.
4. Expense Claims
Employees can claim back expenses that they have paid on the company’s behalf through expense claims. Examples include paying for air travel or taking clients to corporate dinners. Manual expense reporting has longer processing times with a greater risk of expense fraud.
Similarly, Non-employees such as contractors might have to file for the 1099-NEC form, if the company has paid them $600 or more during the tax year, this process could be automated with the help of the 1099 NEC form generator, where the 1099-NEC template is available and most of the details are filled automatically with the help of this online tool.
Expense automation eliminates the complexities of filing and processing expense reports. A business can use dynamic forms where employees quickly fill out expense claims which are then forwarded to the authorized person for review. This way, employees can receive timely reimbursement, and the transparency of the process reduces the likelihood of expense fraud.
How to Identify Processes for Automation?
Before you decide to automate a process, it should be able to fit certain criteria. Below are some signs that can help you identify which processes are best suited for automation.
- If a lot of time is spent by employees on a process task.
- If a process is complex and requires multiple steps to complete it.
- If a process requires a high volume of transactions and processing.
- If a process consists of repetitive tasks.
- If the process involves several tiers of employees.
How Can Business Process Automation Benefit Your Business?
The reason so many businesses have adopted BPA is that it delivers a lot of benefits. Here are a few of them:
Integrated Work Processes
BPA ensures that processes are streamlined in a workflow that is not dependent on manual and time-consuming tasks. Since processes become transparent, it allows for improved accountability and provides better insight into how effective a process is. As inefficient and wasteful activities are reduced through BPA, the overall productivity increases.
Improved Process Efficiency
Business process automation is aimed at saving manual efforts and time while optimizing process performance and reducing costs. When combined together, these elements contribute to more efficient business processes. Complex processes become simplified through automation, improving the overall productivity of the business.
Standardized Operations
Business automation significantly reduces the risk of human error that often becomes the cause of inefficiencies in a business. With BPA, operations function more consistently and predictably, ensuring standard outcomes. Standardized operations also inspire a greater level of trust and confidence among customers and investors.
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