Digitalise your administration: a five-step guide for companies

Digitalising administration does not have to be a big project. Most companies share the same pattern: a few recurring workflows account for most of the time, and that is where the gain is. Start with the workflow that takes the most time, automate it, and build from there. Here is how, in five steps.

Step one: find the biggest time drain

Before you automate anything, find out where the time actually goes. Ask the team which tasks feel most repetitive and where errors usually arise. The answer is often clear: invoice handling, time reporting, order confirmations or compilations redone week after week.

Step two: gather data in one place

Scattered spreadsheets, emails and paper documents create double work and uncertainty about what applies. Gather the information that drives the flow in one place, so everyone works against the same current picture instead of their own copy.

Step three: automate the rule-based steps

The tasks that follow clear rules are the easiest to automate. Creating and sending invoices, reminding about overdue payments, compiling time reports and flagging deviations can be handled by the tool, while people handle the exceptions and what requires judgement.

Step four: connect the systems via API

When accounting, payroll and your own tools talk to each other via API, data is entered once and flows on automatically. That removes the double entry and the errors that arise when the same figure is keyed in several places.

Step five: measure the result and keep improving

Set a couple of simple metrics, for example time per invoice or number of errors per month, and track them. With data behind you it is clear that the change helped, and where the next improvement should go. Digitalisation is not a one off project but something you build on.

Want help finding where you gain the most? A free efficiency audit points out the biggest time drains and estimates the return before you get started.