What is Business Process Automation? Definition, Examples and Benefits

Recruitment and HR are the key areas that require automation due to the number of processes and paperwork that needs to be managed. Can cover a wide range of operational areas, from hiring to budget approvals and sales and marketing. This, of course, can be applied to any number of customer interactions, including order processing.

These include features that enhance collaboration and provide data and insights into process performance. With this type of business automation, companies can simplify and optimize workflows by reducing the human labor required with technology improve the process. Business automation factors in the key steps in a company’s workflows and makes these processes cheaper, faster and less error-prone. It is the process of using software to automate time-consuming, repetitive steps in the sales process. Instead of spending time on administrative tasks, it allows sales teams to focus on valuable tasks such as lead generation, sales strategy, and planning. If you want to learn more, check out our article on 15+ business automation tools.

What Is Business Process Automation?

Whether you manage a team or it’s just you working one-on-one with clients, we guarantee there are steps that you can automate to make your process more efficient. Our experts will offer a comprehensive solution that’s affordable and easy to use. They will also guide you through the important features of business process automation that you can include in your software. Appinventiv is fully adept at handling all complex technologies required to automate your business processes efficiently.

• With automation, organizations can seamlessly create invoices, deliver them on specified dates, send payment reminders to customers, maintain electronic payment records, and assist with account reconciliation.
• In 2020, the company was “keen to find the best solution to meet an unforeseen need as quickly and effectively as possible.”
• These were just 5 process automation examples and their benefits for companies from different segments and businesses operating completely different activities.
• Business process management refers to the discipline of — or comprehensive strategy for — modeling, monitoring, and improving business processes.

Data collection often involves a form being completed, but it can also involve data being automatically extracted or received from a system. By automating meetings, companies can not only manage the event itself, but also the pre- and post-meeting logistics. Brainyard delivers data-driven insights and expert advice to help businesses discover, interpret and act on emerging opportunities and trends.

Processing Costs

Inventory management to staff onboarding and digitalizing core processes, you’ll find that streamlined automated systems cut out manual processing in favor of slick, error-free operations. I realize now I was essentially my friend’s business process automation in human form—the task was so repetitive I could do it while eating leftover pizza and watching anime at the same time. While actual automation would have put me out of a side hustle, that $75 worth of stupefyingly repetitive menial labor bought me about a month of groceries. Transparency in your business operations contributes to employee satisfaction and accountability.

• Can cover a wide range of operational areas, from hiring to budget approvals and sales and marketing.
• A great example of common process automation found in businesses is the sales process automation and IT process automation.
• From hiring to email management to accounting, nearly every corner of a business’ operations can benefit from some level of business automation.
• BPA is an end-to-end solution for automating entire business processes and RPA is a complement to a solid BPA approach.

Let us look at some examples, advantages, and use cases of business process automation. Business process automation has as many applications as sets of workflows in a business. Examples of business process automation included in this guide are AP automation, purchase order management, and general expense management, which Tipalti’s finance automation software products handle. It’s not surprising then that 70% of organizations are turning to workflow automation solutions to reduce costs. BPA helps you lower processing costs by reducing manual data entry and automating approvals with minimal human intervention.

Automated File Transfers

As is the case with RPA, business process automation may or may not include AI solutions. Artificial intelligence—deployed as a solution like a chatbot—is an underlying technology that brings a big boost to BPA and RPA strategies. PayStream Advisors indicate that for the 55% of companies still handling their accounts payable processes manually, using an automated system for the processing and payment of invoices saves time and money. It also reduces data errors and helps prevent fraud through a system of “touchless” controls that happen behind the scenes. Expense management applies to both invoice spend control and employee expense report management. Specialized software presents real-time dashboards for both types of expense management to help your business control its spending levels.

With business process automation, an employee can submit a request electronically through a web-based solution that is routed to his or her supervisor for approval. Moreover, employees can easily view leave allowances and track pending requests. ProcessMaker is an easy to use Business Process Automation and workflow software solution. The best NLP-powered chatbots learn from the informational content of human speech but they also learn to interpret context, and tone.

Accounting Tasks

BPA supports these efforts by reducing time-to-hire and the length of the employee onboarding process, and by integrating with multiple HR apps and systems. HR automation optimizes common processes such as recruiting, onboarding, and employee request management. BPA accelerates revenue by creating more efficient processes for both marketing and sales teams. It reduces time spent fulfilling marketing requests and shortens the customer onboarding process. BPA also integrates with existing CRMs to create sales automation, fill process gaps and dissolve data silos. In fact, Carlsberg Danmark was able to reduce the time taken to process orders by more than 90 percent through business process automation and at the same time, virtually removed all errors.