Business automation
From £885
- One clearly defined process automated
- Built and tested against real data
- Safe error handling and logging
- Run in parallel until proven
- Handover and documentation
Smaller than a system
Business Automation
Not every business needs a five thousand pound application. Often the thing eating your week is one repetitive job, and that job can be automated on its own. Based in Dundee, working with businesses across Scotland and the United Kingdom.
From £885 Starting price. Final cost depends on what the project needs.
Who it is for
- Businesses losing hours a week to the same repeated task
- Anyone producing the same document over and over with different names on it
- Offices copying data between two systems by hand
- Businesses sending the same reminders manually
- Companies that want a system eventually but not this year
- Anyone whose spreadsheet works but takes too long to maintain
What it solves
- The same quote typed out from scratch every time
- Reminders sent by hand, or forgotten
- A monthly report that takes half a day of copying and pasting
- Form submissions retyped into a spreadsheet
- Data moved between two systems manually
- Documents produced one at a time with the details changed
What can be included
Not every project needs everything here. The scope is agreed before work starts, and the quotation reflects what you actually asked for.
Documents and quotes
- Automatic quote generation
- Document and PDF generation
- Templates populated from your data
Communication
- Automated emails
- Customer reminders
- Notifications when something needs attention
Data
- Form processing
- Data transfer between systems
- Spreadsheet replacement
- Scheduled reports
Tools
- Small internal tools
- Job tracking
- Anything repetitive and rule-based
What you get out of it
- Hours back every week, permanently
- The task gets done the same way every time
- Nothing forgotten because someone was busy
- A much smaller step than commissioning a full system
- Often the sensible first move, with a bigger system later if justified
What you receive
- The process automated and tested against real data
- A parallel run alongside the manual method until you trust it
- Notifications when something needs a human
- Logging, so you can see what ran and what it did
- Documentation of how it works and what to do if it stops
- A handover session
What is needed from you
- A walkthrough of the task as it is done now
- Example inputs and the output you expect
- Access to any system involved
- Someone to sanity-check the results during the parallel run
Security considered from the start.
Automation is built with the same care as anything else: validation of the data going in, secure handling of any credentials it needs, safe error handling so a failure is visible rather than silent, and logging so you can see what ran and what it did. Where relevant, development practices take recognised guidance from organisations such as OWASP and the UK National Cyber Security Centre into consideration.
Standards and guidance this work follows
Not a certification claim. These are the published references the work is measured against, so the decisions are somebody else's tested thinking rather than only mine.
OWASP
The Open Worldwide Application Security Project. Its guidance on authentication, access control, input validation, session handling and safe error messages informs how anything with a login or a form is built.
Information Commissioner’s Office
UK data protection guidance. Shapes what a form asks for, how long information is kept, what a privacy notice says, and how cookies are handled.
Following recognised guidance is not the same as holding an independent certification, and none is claimed here.
How it works
Find the real time sink
Often it is not the task people complain about. A short conversation usually locates it.
Scope and quote
A written description of what gets automated and a fixed price.
Build and test
Built, then run alongside the manual process until you trust it.
Handover
Shown how it works, what to do if it stops, and how to tell it has run.
Pricing
What moves the price: how many steps the process has, how many systems it touches, how messy the source data is, and whether anything needs to run on a schedule.
Prices shown are starting prices. Final pricing depends on project requirements, functionality, complexity, integrations and third-party services. A clear quotation is provided before work begins.
Common questions
How much does business automation cost?
From £885 for a single well-defined process. It is deliberately a smaller commitment than a full application, because for a lot of businesses it is the right size of answer.
How do I know if automation is enough?
If the pain is one repeated task, automation. If the pain is that information lives in too many places and nobody can see the whole picture, you are probably looking at custom business software.
Can you automate our quotes?
Quote generation is one of the most common requests, and one of the most satisfying, because the time saved is easy to measure.
Will it break if something changes?
Anything automated depends on the things it connects to. It is built to fail visibly rather than silently, so you find out from a notification rather than from a customer.
Related services
What takes the longest?
Tell me the job that eats the most time for the least reward. That is usually the one worth automating first.