By function: Operations

Operations automation

The order moves through the business without anyone re-typing it, and everyone who needs to know, knows.

Start with the audit Book thirty minutes

First workflow live: Order intake, usually inside the first sprint
Usually owned by: Operations managers and heads of ops
Built on: Airtable, SmartSuite, Supabase
Judged on: Order processing time and Re-typing

In short

Operations automation gives every order, job or ticket one record that moves through confirmation, work, dispatch and billing with each stage updated by the system that did the work. Status reaches the warehouse, the customer and finance from the same event. SBD builds this on an operations base in your name, with a review queue for exceptions.

Who this is for

The people who usually own operations.

Operations managers and heads of ops
Owners of a business that runs on a spreadsheet
Warehouse and dispatch leads
Finance people who inherit the mess at month end

Is this you?

If three of these sound like your week, this page is about your team.

An order is typed into more than one system
Where is order 4471 is a question for one person
Dispatch waits on paperwork
The dashboard is an export
Month end means reconciling what operations did

What it costs today

Where operations loses the hours.

The order is typed three times
Once into the store or email, once into the operations sheet, once into accounting. Each copy drifts.
Status lives in someone's head
Where is order 4471 is a question for one person, and when they are away the answer is nobody knows.
Dispatch waits on paperwork
Delivery notes, labels and invoices are produced by hand at the end, so the truck waits on the printer.
The dashboard is last week
Reports are compiled from exports. By the time they are read, the week they describe is over.

For operations teams

Know where every order is without asking.

Bring one order and follow it with us from enquiry to invoice. Every place it gets re-typed is a place we can remove.

Follow one order with us

A warehouse worker checking stock on a tablet between stacked boxes — Know where every order is without asking. Photo: Wolfart, Pexels.

By company size

Operations at 10 people, and at 1,000.

1 to 10
The owner knows where every order is, which works until the owner is away.
11 to 50
One operations sheet, several people editing it, and a status that depends on who last typed.
51 to 200
Orders in the store, stock in the ERP, dispatch on paper, and three people reconciling them.
201 to 1,000
Several sites, several systems, and a weekly report that takes a day to build and is wrong by Monday.

What we build

What we build for operations teams.

01
One order record, end to end
Enquiry to order to dispatch to invoice as one record, with each stage set by the system that did the work, never by hand.
02
Dispatch that notifies everyone
A status change sends the right message to the warehouse, the transporter, the customer and finance, with documents generated and attached.
03
Stock and reorder visibility
Live stock with reorder flags, fed from sales and goods-in, so the count on screen matches the shelf.
04
Live operations dashboard
Orders by stage, late jobs, stock at risk and today's dispatches, read from the record of truth, not a parallel spreadsheet.

The workflows

The operations workflows, and what sets each one off.

01
Order intake
When an order arrives from store, email or form

Then
One record created, validated, with the customer matched
02
Dispatch notifications
When a status changes to dispatched

Then
Warehouse, transporter, customer and finance told, documents attached
03
Stock and reorder
When stock moves in or out

Then
Levels updated, reorder flag raised below threshold
04
Invoice from dispatch
When goods leave

Then
The invoice raised in accounting from the dispatch record
05
Operations dashboard
When any record changes

Then
Orders by stage, late jobs and stock at risk refreshed

The numbers we move

How a operations build is judged.

Every build has a number written into the blueprint. These are the ones operations builds are measured by, and how we measure them.

Metric	Before	After	How it is measured
Order processing time	Hours per order	Minutes	Time from order received to dispatch-ready, median
Re-typing	Three times per order	Zero	Fields entered by hand, counted in the audit
Status questions	Daily, to one person	Answered by the record	Internal messages asking where an order is, per week
Dashboard freshness	Last week	This morning	Age of the newest data in the dashboard

Built on

The tools you already run, where we can.

Every tool we connect has its own page in the integrations directory.

Proof

Proof from builds like this.

How it starts

An audit of the operations work your team still does by hand.

One to two weeks. We map the workflows, put an hours-a-week figure on each, and give you a costed blueprint in order of payback. The audit is credited in full to the build.

Start with the audit Book thirty minutes

Week 1 to 2Audit. We sit with the people who do the work and map it.
Week 3Blueprint. Fixed scope, fixed price, the first build chosen by payback.
Week 4 onBuild in two-week sprints, working software every second Friday.
After go-liveSixty days of hypercare, then a care plan or run it yourself.

What this does not do

So the scope is clear before the call.

Replacing your ERP. We connect to it and build the work around it.
Warehouse hardware. Scanners and printers we integrate; we do not supply them.

Terms, defined

Operations terms, in plain English.

Record of truth: The one place a fact lives. Everything else reads from it.
Dispatch event: The moment goods leave, used as the trigger for documents, messages and the invoice.
Reorder flag: A signal raised when stock crosses a threshold, with the supplier and lead time attached.

Questions

What people ask about operations automation.

We run on spreadsheets. Is that a problem?

It is the starting point for most clients. We move the sheet that became a database into a real one, keep a sheet view for the people who want it, and stop data being typed into it.

What happens when something goes wrong mid-flow?

It lands in a review queue with the record attached, and the owner is alerted. Nothing is dropped and nothing is guessed.

How fast is the first piece live?

The first workflow, usually order intake or dispatch messaging, is normally running inside the first two-week sprint.

Reading

By function: Back office, Finance and accounting, Compliance and risk, Sales and RevOps, Customer support, Marketing, HR and people, IT, Leadership

Operations

Get the operations hours back.

Bring the one operations workflow your team still runs by hand. You leave the call with a yes or no on fit and the first thing we would build.

Book the call

A team of six gathered around one screen in an open-plan office — Thirty minutes with the people who own the process. Photo: Vitaly Gariev, Unsplash.

Operations automation

The people who usually own operations.

If three of these sound like your week, this page is about your team.

Where operations loses the hours.

The order is typed three times

Status lives in someone's head

Dispatch waits on paperwork

The dashboard is last week

Know where every order is without asking.

Operations at 10 people, and at 1,000.

What we build for operations teams.

One order record, end to end

Dispatch that notifies everyone

Stock and reorder visibility

Live operations dashboard

The operations workflows, and what sets each one off.

How a operations build is judged.

The tools you already run, where we can.

Proof from builds like this.

Order and dispatch management system

Multi-user production dashboard

An audit of the operations work your team still does by hand.

So the scope is clear before the call.

Operations terms, in plain English.

What people ask about operations automation.

Who noticed when the workflow stopped?

Invoice intake with an agent: the first thirty days

Manufacturing

Distribution and logistics

Finance and accounting

Get the operations hours back.