Business Process Automation: 10 Tasks Companies Should Stop Doing Manually

1. Download the invoice.
2. Identify the supplier.
3. Enter invoice information.
4. Match it with a purchase order.
5. Request approval.
6. Update accounting software.

Parts of this workflow can be automated.

Modern document processing systems can extract structured information from invoices and send it through validation and approval workflows.

Humans can focus on exceptions rather than processing every document manually.

5. Customer Onboarding

Customer onboarding frequently involves multiple departments.

For a B2B company, signing a new customer might trigger:

• CRM updates
• Account creation
• Contract storage
• Billing setup
• Internal notifications
• Welcome emails
• Customer portal access
• Account manager assignment

If every department performs these steps independently, customers may experience delays.

Automation can trigger the entire sequence from one event:

Contract Signed
      ↓
Create Customer Account
      ↓
Configure Billing
      ↓
Assign Account Manager
      ↓
Create Portal Access
      ↓
Send Welcome Email

This also makes the onboarding process more consistent.

6. Employee Onboarding

The same principle applies internally.

When someone joins a company, HR and IT may need to:

• Create an email account
• Add the employee to internal systems
• Configure permissions
• Order equipment
• Send documents
• Schedule training
• Notify managers

A workflow can coordinate these tasks automatically.

The process can also work in reverse when employees leave.

Automated offboarding is particularly important because forgotten accounts can become security risks.

7. Inventory Alerts

Inventory management is another area where manual monitoring becomes difficult at scale.

Instead of employees repeatedly checking stock levels, systems can respond to predefined conditions.

For example:

Inventory < Minimum Level
        ↓
Create Alert
        ↓
Check Supplier
        ↓
Generate Purchase Request
        ↓
Manager Approval