Learn how to – 4 Types of Automation Tools for Your Small Business

Learn how to – 4 Types of Automation Tools for Your Small Business.

Businesses are slow to adapt to new technologies. While the cost, complexity, and skills are reasonable causes, many companies find these tech advancements unnecessary. This is predominantly applicable to small businesses that viewed themselves as too small to integrate these tech advancements into their operations. 

But choosing to ignore this technological change could put you at a disadvantage. Embracing the importance of these tech innovations is essential if you want to remain competitive. This can be intimidating, but automating some of your business processes would be a great start. 

Below, we will discuss the four types of automation tools to consider for your small business and how they can help you in the long run:

1. Task Management Platform

Are you constantly juggling countless responsibilities? You may tend to have a lot on your plate as a small business owner. Scheduling employees’ shifts, giving assignments, and monitoring inventory might be several things you try to manage every day. 

While these recurring tasks are simple, they are eating into your budget and time. The good news is you can get them done in less time with a task management platform. Instead of spending hours on setting up projects and tracking staff performance, you can focus more on growing your business with high-value tasks. 

You can use several task management tools, depending on what you need and prefer. But the most effective one must help you with the following: 

• Create schedules and break down your work into more manageable tasks
• Notify you of upcoming deadlines, overdue projects, and urgent approvals
• Track activities that are started, in progress, and completed in real-time
• Provide efficient collaboration by enabling your team to exchange information, share tasks, and get updates

A good task management platform should help you stay in control of your to-do lists, project progress, and calendars at every level. It must keep you and your team working together and accomplish more high-value activities. 

2. Business Spend Management Tool

Does your business have limited cash on hand? It’s typical for small businesses to experience cash flow problems now and then. But while taking financial risks is part of the game, there’s a more intentional approach to running your business without bleeding money. 

Note that it’s easy to overshoot your budget and run out of cash if you don’t know where your money is going. You can optimize your spending with a business spend management tool. Thus, you can better ensure every dollar gets spent on items that give you the most profits. 

An ideal spend management system should provide your business with these benefits:

• Give you complete and real-time visibility into all the expenses incurred in your company. Free expense report templates are available online if you don’t want to create one from scratch.
• Automate your payments and streamline procurement processes
• Limit discretionary spending and save money on legitimate expenses
• Analyze and report any irregularities, patterns, or trends in your spending

3. Accounts Payable (AP) System

Does your business fall behind bills and debts payment? It can be overwhelming to track due dates when you’re dealing with a handful of transactions every day. But paying your creditors and suppliers on time is crucial for your business’s health. 

Having an efficient accounts payable process is vital to improving your cash position. It also plays a role in maintaining a solid relationship with your lenders and suppliers. However, the accounts payable department is one of the most challenging units to manage. 

That is when automation comes in handy. You can take a more strategic method to pay vendors and optimize cash flow with an automated accounts payable system. The best accounts payable software must help you accomplish the following tasks: 

• Keep track of inventory turnover
• Allow your AP department to get invoices promptly and orderly 
• Initiate invoice and payment processing on time
• Manage approver assignments and general ledger posting
• Provide real-time reporting on your company’s total expenditures

4. Email Marketing Automation Tool

Does your business send too many emails? Email marketing is a valuable method to reach out to customers. But many companies fail to generate leads from their email marketing campaigns. This is because emails are piling up in customers’ inboxes and often get marked as spam. 

In a worst-case scenario, they would unsubscribe from your list. Customers don’t want to receive multiple emails frequently. They also don’t want to read something with a misleading headline and irrelevant content. 

People prefer to get personalized emails. They are more likely to respond if your emails address them by their names and relate to their interests. This is where automating your email marketing strategy comes into play. 

A reliable email marketing automation tool should enable your business to do the following:

• Provide customized templates for mobile users
• Sync your emails with the customer purchasing cycle
• Keep your deliverability rates on track
• Seamlessly integrates with a variety of software platforms
• Test your messages against spam filters
• Delivers the right emails at the right time to the right contacts

If your business successfully use email marketing tools you will be also satisfied to automate your linkedin outreach and to get real prospects with services like GetSales.io.

The Takeaway

Automating your business processes doesn’t have to be daunting. You can take an incremental approach to build an automated workflow for your small company. Make sure to evaluate your unique needs to identify the best automation tool for your employees and customers.