5 Time-Saving Automations to Simplify Your Small Business

I bet you’re wearing many hats every day. From marketing and admin to client delivery - small business owners often do all this and so much more all on the same day.

It’s no wonder so many small businesses struggle to scale efficiently without either working 10 hours a day, or breaking the bank on admin support.

Here’s the good news:

With the help of AI and automation workflows you don't have to do everything manually any more. With tools like Make.com, Zapier, and custom integrations (yay for fancy APIs) — you can streamline your operations, improve customer experience, and free up time to focus on what matters most to you.

I'm thinking afternoons spending dedicated time with the kids, while also having time in the week for strategic thinking and working on those amazing business growth plans you have brewing.

So we have whipped up 5 simple automations any service based business can implement to help save themselves time, admin costs, and maybe even a little bit of stress. Here we go…

Five Business Automations You Can Implement today:

1. Automated Client Onboarding

Have your projects, proposals, contracts, and/or invoices automatically generated the moment a new client is made — shortening your sales cycle and saving money on unnecessary admin.

Once you’ve tested it out a few times and are completely happy with the process, you could even automate the whole process and have everything sent to the clients automatically too.

There are a few ways you could do this, but the trick here is to find the trigger that contains the onboarding information needed for the rest of the workflow. This is the information that enables the rest of the workflow to be actioned. Depending on the complexity of the workflow you want to generate here, the trigger could be as simple as adding a new client into the CRM, or more complex like filling out a client onboarding form.

✨Tip: Always start by mapping out your current manual process. A great tool for this is miro.com

2. Team Task Creation from Client Activity

Automatically create tasks or assign work to yourself or team members in your project management system - like monday.com. When a client books a meeting, purchases a package, or completes an internal form, automates the assignment of internal tasks that need to be actioned as a result.

This also helps to prevent anyone on the team from even questioning the process or missing any of the details. Even better!!

To do this I see a few options:

First, you can investigate what automations can be actioned within the project management system itself. For example, Monday.com (like many project management systems) has internal “rule” based automations built within the platform. This is great for simple rules, such as “if this, then that” type of workflows. It's best to use this if the workflow you are building does not require integration with external apps.

For example, a client fills out a monday.com client feedback form, tasks are generated for the team based on the results of the feedback.

The second option is using an external automation platform such as make.com. Building workflows in Make.com allows for much larger more complex workflows to be built out and more easily allows integrations between separate systems.

For example, a client purchases a high ticket membership subscription in Kajabi. A workflow can be built in Make.com to automatically generate tasks for your team to complete the client onboarding process.

• Create and send a welcome goodie box,
• Book a welcome call,
• Send a personal email, and
• Create a community group post to welcome the new member.

The choice here is largely based on the complexity of your workflow, integration needs, and the level of customisation required in the automation. I suggest researching what automations and integrations your project management system can complete internally vs using an external system (like Make.com) and connecting the systems using an API.

3. Lead and Funnel Qualification

Create web forms to capture, qualify, and segment leads automatically. Creating a high quality opt-in that qualifies each lead, allows you to personalise your ideal PAYING clients experience, which means you will be much more likely to win the client over.

By creating thoughtful web forms, you can gently guide potential clients through a process that helps them achieve a personal win of some kind and by giving them more information as a “Freebie”. This allows you to gain their email address, and you are at an advantage as you now understand if that lead is a good fit and exactly how you can support them.

This approach not only saves you time, but it ensures you’re connecting with those who truly resonate with your work. Ultimately, it means that only high-quality prospects-those who genuinely need your service-reach your inbox to follow up with.

This is done by developing a quiz style offer on your website (free or paid) for potential clients to complete and gain a personal action plan based on their results. Depending on the outcome of their results, you can create a sales funnel to guide them into specific offers that are built around their ideal outcome. No more selling Low level offers to what could be a VIP client. The quiz And Funnel takes care of that for you!

4. Recurring Report Generation

Imagine never having to manually pull metrics from multiple platforms again. No more logging into each system, copying figures into a spreadsheet, or chasing up reports across your team.
With the right automation setup, you can create an automated reporting system that gathers data from all your key platforms. Think data from social media analytics, lead generation tools, website performance trackers - all neatly compiled into a single spreadsheet or dashboard. (Fancy!)

Here are a few examples to get those juices flowing on where this could be implemented in your business:

• You might use a tool like Make.com to pull key metrics from various social media platforms into a Google Sheet each week.
• Or you could bring together Google Analytics website data, CRM lead stats, and eCommerce sales figures into one live dashboard that your team can check anytime.

Not only does this save hours of repetitive admin, but it also ensures your business decisions are always based on the most up-to-date and accurate data available.

✨Tip: Before building, it's so important to map out which numbers you truly need and why. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by too much data!

Start small with your core metrics (such as conversion rates, engagement stats, or weekly revenue) and build your dashboard with stats that truly matter. That way, you avoid clutter and end up with a reporting system that genuinely supports your business growth.

5. Membership or Subscription Renewal Alerts

Set up automated reminders for birthdays or generate automatic renewal processes to keep memberships and subscriptions running smoothly without manual tracking.

This is perfect for high ticket memberships, as this allows you to keep a human touch and remind you or your team to reach out to the members and ensure ongoing satisfaction and ensure annual renewal is secured.

Want to take it even further? Automations around membership renewals don’t just have to remind people — they can actually boost retention, re-engage lapsed members, or even increase revenue with upsell opportunities. With the right workflow design, you can add layers like personalised win-back sequences, milestone rewards, or VIP renewal incentives — all working quietly in the background while you focus on serving your members.

Busy Made Simple specialises in building automations tailored to small business needs. These automations are affordable, and clever solutions that enable our clients to integrate their systems seamlessly to not only save time and money, but save people from doing any of those tasks that nobody wants to be doing in the first place.

Here’s how we’ve helped other businesses save time, reduce errors, and boost revenue.

Real-World Case Studies: 4 High impact automations by Busy Made Simple

1. Linking Booking, course, payment and marketing Systems Together

Starting point:

An online and in person course business was juggling multiple platforms — Acuity for in person course bookings, ActiveCampaign for email marketing, ThriveCart for payments, and Kajabi for online courses — but nothing was connected.

Our automation:

We used Make.com to create workflows where:

• Booking information from Acuity was automatically synced to Active Campaign, capturing key tags, segmentation details, and customer data that helped drive our marketing campaigns.
• Payments processed through Acuity and Thrivecart ensured that students were automatically granted access to their learning products in Kajabi, without the need for any manual cross-checking.
• Member details, including birthdays and in-person course attendance, flowed smoothly from Active Campaign into Kajabi, completing the collection of valuable marketing insights.

The result is now a fully integrated system running hands-off in the background. This saves the business at least 3 hours of manual data transfer every week.

I bet her VA was happy with that outcome!

2. Building Custom API for course and booking system automations

Starting point:

An education and training client needed a highly customised automation to sync client activity directly with Kajabi. However, the standard, built-in integrations between their in person course booking software and Kajabi weren’t enough to meet their needs.

Our automation:

Using Make.com and Kajabi’s new API, our skilled consultants built:

• Tailored workflows that automatically update Kajabi with client details provided from the booking system as soon as a new client booked into a class.
• This real-time syncing of client engagement included data such as “class start date”, meaning we could automate email sequences based on the date the students class was booked.

With client information accurately synced across platforms, we could maintain up-to-date CRM records, deliver highly targeted marketing campaigns, and ensure a seamless, improved experience for our client’s audience.

The result was a powerful, custom solution that offered far more control over data movement and integration compared to standard Zapier connections. The client no longer needs to update Kajabi manually, saving valuable time and unlocking a smoother, more efficient business process.

3. Syncing Tags Across business Systems

Starting point:

A coaching client wanted to segment and tag his audience across multiple platforms — including ActiveCampaign, Coach Accountable, and even his Google contacts — all based on real-time client interactions and engagement.

Our automation:

We designed a series of Zapier automations that:

• Applied or updated specific tags when clients interact with the brand; such as “purchased 2025 annual planning session”, and “online course: completed module 4”
• Synced all client tags dynamically across all business systems

This keeps the client’s pipeline smooth, their marketing is now personalised, and their operations are much easier to maintain. This was all achieved without giving up the tools the client built their business on and love.

4. Integrating Service Software with Task Management

Starting point:

Our client ran her marketing business inside HighLevel but managed her team inside ClickUp. The problem? Her team was entering the same data twice across both systems, wasting valuable time and increasing the risk of human error.

Our automation:

By leveraging HighLevel’s native workflows, we set up:

• Automated, real-time updates between HighLevel and ClickUp, triggered whenever a change was made in HighLevel, keeping both systems perfectly aligned
• A unified and up-to-date view of client and project data that the entire team could access confidently, knowing the information was accurate across all platforms

The result? No more double handling or second-guessing which platform held the correct data. The business could now run more smoothly, with greater accuracy, and trust in its systems and processes.

Why Automate?

Smart automations are not just about efficiency. They:

• Unlock new revenue opportunities by freeing your time and admin costs to work on growth opportunities
• Reduce stress by cutting out repetitive manual tasks (that no one wants to do anyways!)
• Increase accuracy by minimising human error
• Help small teams do big things without the overhead of extra hires and large teams

Automating your business is not just about installing software — you're crafting intelligent, strategic workflows that fit your business goals and make your systems work for you.

Ready to Simplify Your Business?

If you’re ready to stop wasting time on busywork with those tasks that can be clearly automated, lets free up your time and your team. Our aim is to enable you to create more space for growth, enabling you to step into your business as the leader it needs you to be to make a bigger impact.

Let us help you craft automation solutions tailored to your business — no cookie-cutter templates here! Just smart, strategic systems that help you thrive.