Copying between systems that could talk
Xero, HubSpot and most modern order systems have APIs, yet someone copies details between them by hand every day — with a chance of a typo at each step.
Automation development · UK
Business Process Automation for UK Teams
We automate the repetitive work that fills your team’s week — re-keying invoices, chasing approvals, setting up new starters, sorting the shared inbox — by connecting the systems you already use, adding AI where something needs reading or drafting, and keeping people in charge of the decisions that matter.
- Measured before and after, in your own numbers
- Human approval wherever money or people are involved
- Straight advice when a no-code tool will do
Where the time goes
Where operations teams lose their week.
None of this is anyone’s real job, yet together it takes hours every week across finance, operations, HR and customer service.
What makes a good first automation
The strongest candidates share a few traits:
- It happens often — daily or weekly, not once a year
- The rules can be written down
- The inputs arrive digitally: email, forms, files or APIs
- One person or team clearly owns the process
- Mistakes are caught today, just slowly
Approvals stuck in inboxes
Purchase requests, supplier invoices and holiday requests wait for someone who is out of the office, chased by yet more email.
Month-end by spreadsheet
Bank lines, supplier statements and card payments matched by eye, then adjusted by hand whenever something does not reconcile.
Reports built by copy and paste
Monday morning spent exporting from four systems into a template, so the figures are already out of date by lunchtime.
Buy or build
Zapier, Make, Power Automate — or custom?
Automation platforms are good tools, and plenty of businesses should start with one. The useful question is where they stop being the cheapest or safest option.
A no-code tool is enough when…
The flow is simple, volumes are modest, every system has a ready-made connector, and a failed run is easy to spot and redo. If that is you, we will say so.
Custom is worth it when…
Per-task charges climb with volume, the logic has real branches and exceptions, failures must retry without creating duplicates, data should not pass through another platform, or the automation is part of what you sell.
A mix is often right
Keep the simple flows where they already work, and move the heavy, sensitive or business-critical steps into a small service they call. Nothing that works has to be rebuilt.
Examples
Automations that suit UK finance and operations teams.
Typical first projects: frequent, rule-based work between systems you already pay for, with a person approving anything that matters.
Supplier invoices into Xero or QuickBooks
PDF invoices read from a shared inbox, matched to purchase orders and created as draft bills for approval. Nothing is posted without sign-off.
Overdue invoice reminders
Reminders sent on a schedule from your accounting data, paused automatically when a payment lands or a dispute is logged, and escalated to a person when polite emails stop working.
Digital links, not retyped figures
HMRC’s Making Tax Digital rules expect VAT records to move between software digitally. We replace copy-and-paste steps with integrations; your accountant confirms the setup.
Joiners, movers and leavers
Microsoft 365 accounts and groups set up, equipment requested and the starter checklist tracked — and access removed on a leaver’s last day.
Shared inbox triage
Emails classified, matched to the customer record in HubSpot and routed to the right person, with a suggested reply ready to edit.
New business customer checks
Company details, officers and filing status pulled from the Companies House API when a B2B account is opened, instead of searched by hand.
What you own
What comes with every automation.
An automation is small software, and it deserves the same care: code you own, running in your accounts, with a runbook your own team can follow.
Code in your repository
Triggers, rules and steps written as code — versioned, tested and readable by the next developer — rather than hidden inside a platform account.
Custom workflow software
Connections through official APIs
Xero, Sage, QuickBooks, HubSpot, Microsoft 365 and your own databases, with rate limits and expiring access tokens handled properly.
API and integration work
AI only where text needs reading
Language models pull fields from PDFs and emails, classify requests and draft replies — the steps fixed rules cannot handle.
AI workflow automation
Approvals where they belong
Payments, contracts and anything affecting a person wait for sign-off in Teams, Outlook or a simple approval screen.
A runbook your team can follow
What each automation does, how to pause it, what each alert means and how to process items by hand if a connected system is down.
Alerts and an audit trail
Every run recorded — what arrived, what was done, who approved it — with alerts on failure, so problems surface before month-end does.
Systems we connect
Built around the tools UK businesses already use.
We connect what you already have rather than asking you to switch. These are the systems UK finance and operations teams most often rely on.
Accounting
XeroSageQuickBooksBank and card exports
CRM and service
HubSpotHelpdesk toolsWeb formsShared mailboxes
Microsoft 365
Outlook and ExchangeSharePoint and OneDriveTeams approvalsExcel workbooks
UK public services
Companies House APIHMRC VAT number checksMTD-compatible software
AI steps
Document extractionEmail classificationReply draftingGPT, Claude or Gemini
Build and run
Python and Node.jsQueues and scheduled jobsPostgreSQLAWS or your own cloud
If a system has no usable API, we will set out the alternatives — scheduled exports, a parsed notification email, or asking the vendor — and the trade-offs of each, before anything is built.
Proving it works
Measure before, measure after.
Every automation starts with a baseline taken with the people who do the work, and ends with the same measures taken the same way.
We do not promise savings before measuring. The baseline and the follow-up use your volumes and your team’s time, so the result is yours to check.
- Before
Baseline the process
We time the current process with the people who run it: items per week, minutes per item, rework, delays and where errors creep in.
A written baseline
- Pilot
Run alongside the old way
The automation handles real items in parallel while people keep working as normal. We compare the two and close the gaps before anything depends on it.
Parallel-run results
- Go-live
Switch over in stages
One team, supplier group or document type at a time, with the exceptions watched closely in the first weeks.
Automation in daily use
- After
Measure the same things again
The baseline measures, repeated the same way — including time now spent on exceptions and approvals — so the comparison is fair.
A before-and-after report
- Ongoing
Keep it earning its place
Vendors change their APIs, suppliers redesign their invoices and rules move on. We check each automation still pays for itself.
Periodic review
How we work
How an automation goes from idea to routine.
The same seven stages as all our software, scaled down to fit a single process — and ending with your team able to run it without us.
- 01
Discovery
We follow real items through each process with the people who run it — from the inbox to the ledger — and record volumes and handling time as the baseline.
Process map and baseline
- 02
Strategy
Each candidate gets a recommendation: configure a no-code tool, build a custom automation, or combine the two — with the running cost of each option, not just the build.
A tool choice per process, with a fixed quote
- 03
UX & architecture
We design the human touchpoints — approval messages in Teams or Outlook, the exceptions screen, the alerts — so the automation fits into tools your team already has open.
Approval, exception and alert design
- 04
Development
Built against sandbox or demo accounts where vendors provide them, in your repositories and cloud account from the first day.
A working automation in your accounts
- 05
Testing
Deliberate failure testing: expired tokens, duplicate emails, malformed files, a supplier who changes their invoice layout, and a connected system that is down.
Failure-mode test results
- 06
Launch
Your team gets the runbook and a walkthrough: what each automation does, how to pause it, what the alerts mean and how to handle items by hand.
Runbook and trained owners
- 07
Optimisation & support
We re-measure against the baseline, keep integrations current as vendors change their APIs, and either stay on for changes or hand over completely.
Before-and-after report
Engagement models
Ways to pay for automation work.
A short discovery maps and measures the processes, then each automation is built for a fixed price. Small changes and new rules after launch can be handled by the hour.
Discovery sprint
From £2,000 fixed fee
You have an idea or a problem, but not yet a scope you would trust a quote against.
- Workshops with your team
- Prototype or technical spike
- Written scope, plan and estimate
Fixed-scope project
Quoted after discovery
A defined build — an MVP, a rebuild or a feature set — with milestones and a fixed budget.
- Agreed milestones and deliverables
- Milestone-based billing
- A demo at the end of every sprint
Flexible hours
From £20 per hour
Fixes, small features and support where the work comes in bursts rather than sprints.
- Billed weekly for time used
- Daily written updates
- No long-term commitment
Prices are in GBP and show where engagements start, not a quote; every estimate is confirmed in writing after a discovery call. Subscriptions for the systems we connect, and any AI usage, are paid directly to those providers.
Relevant work
Products we have designed and built.
Workflow and reporting systems we have built: client intake and document workflows for a law firm, and a revenue dashboard with automated reporting from several data sources.
All case studiesWhy Techsleight
What working with us is actually like.
No inflated numbers — just how we run projects, and what you can hold us to.
Product engineering, not ticket-taking
We ask what the software is for before we estimate it — and we will tell you when something should not be built, or should be bought instead.
AI where it earns its place
LLM features, retrieval and automation built with evaluation, guardrails and cost controls, and plain software where that is the better answer.
Full-stack under one roof
Design, frontend, backend, mobile, cloud and QA in one team, so nothing falls between suppliers.
UK-focused delivery
UK business hours, estimates in pounds, and a contract with a UK company. Our engineers are based in the UK and India.
Flexible engagement
A fixed-scope project, dedicated developers or a monthly retainer — and you can move between them as the work changes.
You own everything
Code, IP, cloud accounts and documentation are yours from day one. We sign an NDA before discovery if you need one.
Support after launch
We stay on for fixes, upgrades and new features, or hand over cleanly to your in-house team with the documentation to match.
FAQs
Questions we get asked.
Straight answers on scope, cost, timelines and how we work. If yours is not here, ask us directly.
Do you build automations we run ourselves, or run the process for us?
This page is about automations you own: the code sits in your repository, runs in your accounts, and comes with a runbook so your team can operate it. If you would rather hand the whole process over and have it run to an agreed service level, that is our business process outsourcing service instead.
Should we just use Zapier, Make or Power Automate?
Possibly — they are good tools, and if your flows are simple and volumes modest we will tell you to start there. Custom automation earns its keep when per-task pricing grows with volume, the logic gets complicated, failures must be handled carefully, or data should not pass through another platform. A mix of both is common.
Can you automate work in Xero, Sage or QuickBooks?
Yes, through their official APIs: creating draft bills and invoices, matching payments, syncing contacts and pulling figures for reports. We normally create drafts for a person to approve rather than posting directly, and agree the accounting treatment with your finance team or accountant.
Does automation help with Making Tax Digital?
It can. Making Tax Digital expects VAT records to move between software through digital links rather than retyping, so replacing manual transfers with integrations supports that. What your MTD setup needs is a question for your accountant — we build the connections, but we do not give tax advice.
Where does AI fit into business process automation?
In the steps rules cannot handle: reading a supplier invoice in any layout, classifying an email, drafting a reply or summarising a document. Decisions about money or people stay with rules and human approval, and anything the AI is unsure about goes to a person with the reason attached.
How do you prove an automation was worth it?
We measure the process before we build — volume, minutes per item, rework and delays — and take the same measures after go-live, including time spent on exceptions. You get a before-and-after comparison in your own numbers, not an industry average.
What happens if a connected system changes or goes down?
The automation should fail loudly and safely. Failures raise an alert, retries are designed not to create duplicates, and items wait in a queue until the system is back. When a vendor changes its API, the monitoring shows it quickly and the runbook explains how to process items by hand in the meantime.
Who looks after the automations once they are live?
Your choice. Your own team can run them from the runbook, with the code in your repository for any developer to change. Or we stay on to keep integrations current, adjust rules and add new automations — billed by the hour for small changes, or quoted as a fixed price for larger ones.
How much does business process automation cost?
A discovery sprint to map and measure your processes starts from £2,000. Each automation is then quoted as a fixed price, with running costs — hosting, any AI usage and the subscriptions you already pay — set out alongside, so you can compare them fairly with a no-code platform’s per-task charges.
Are there UK GDPR rules on automated decisions about people?
Yes. Automations that handle personal data need a lawful basis, transparency and proper security like any other processing, and decisions made solely by automation that significantly affect someone — hiring or credit, for example — need extra safeguards, including a route to human review. Your DPO decides; we design the controls and document the data flows.
Start a project
Which task would you automate first?
Describe the process, the systems it touches and roughly how often it runs. We will tell you whether it suits a no-code tool, a custom automation or a mix — and how we would measure the result.
What happens next
- 1A senior engineer reads your brief within one working day, and replies with questions or a first view.
- 2A 30-minute call to understand the goal, constraints and what good looks like — no sales script.
- 3A written proposal with scope, milestones, team and a GBP estimate you can take to your board.
Techsleight Labs is a trading name of Krapton IT Consultancy.
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