IT tools allow us to automate all kinds of tasks with the aim of reducing time and errors. But not everything should be automated. An inefficient and complex process can be sped up using some kind of automation but it will still be an inefficient and complex process. Because of its complexity, the cost (in terms of time, validations, and money) of automating the process will be probably greater than expected.

In addition, trying to automate an already messed up process will only make your process quickly more messy.

It is much better to improve your business processes and think about automation once they are good and efficient.

You should also think about the importance of the process and about how often that process is done. A process that is done dozens of times per day is probably worth automating while a process that is done once a year may not be the best candidate for automation.

The process in our example has to be clearly improved before any kind of automation is applied to it. We cannot just take it as it is and automate only some of the activities.

The longest activity is the process of going through all the purchase invoices and determining whether they are attributable to a specific service. The human decision part probably cannot be automated now or in the near future.