Business Workflow Software for Automation and Management

Every business process in a company should have an accompanying workflow to complete it. Workflow planning, optimization, analysis, and management are all key contributors to a business’ success.

Many Canadian businesses are implementing workflows even for simple processes in small companies, which is excellent practice for ensuring compliance and good communication. However, many workflows still contain manual tasks that are time-consuming, error-prone, and, most importantly, expensive. Workflow software and workflow applications are the solutions to these problems.

No matter how simple your workflows or how small your staff may be, if you are implementing workflows, you need to work with professional workflow software to manage them.

Workflow management software and workflow automation software are applications that optimize your workflows so you can reap all the benefits of these processes and minimize errors and redundancies.

How can workflow software and applications help you manage your accounting and finances? The team at Accountor CPA is here to help with integrations and long-term planning for your workflows and finance management.

What is Workflow Software?

Workflow software refers to any type of software, application, or tool that a company can use to plan, build, execute, analyze, and manage a workflow.

Any business working with workflows should employ the use of business workflow software, allowing for optimization, analysis, automation, and overall management. If a workflow is created and implemented, but individuals or teams must still update various software manually, send multiple emails, or manually check for updates, the workflow is far from being optimized. Your team needs to experience the time-saving and cost-saving benefits that workflows offer.

Using the best workflow software and applications for your company allows your team to streamline activities, build efficiencies, and eliminate unnecessary or redundant practices smoothly. The purpose of workflow software is to remove, or eliminate as much as possible, the need for manual work in your internal teams and client relations.

Workflow management software and similar workflow automation software seek to completely streamline your business operations. As a small business ourselves, the Accountor CPA team understands the importance of these applications. As part of our accounting and financial services, we can help you determine the best workflow applications that suit your business and contribute to your accounting and overall financial well-being.

Contact us for a free consultation for your unique business.

Workflow Management Software

Workflow management software (WMS) is an advanced platform for businesses that provides flexible tools to improve how you, your teams, and your staff work. It includes wide-reaching functions for all aspects of workflow management, including:

• Creating and optimizing workflows
• Finding redundant tasks
• Analyzing workflows for areas of improvement
• Automating work processes
• Improving internal and external communication
• Achieving new levels of productivity and efficiency
• Minimizing manual tasks
• Providing an eagle-eye view of tasks and projects, as well as minuscule tasks and details

The best workflow management software goes beyond just a to-do list, checklist, creation, or automation. It encompasses every aspect of workflows and integrations that affect your company. Regarding accounting, workflow management software can provide important financial details about where you spend the most money, what areas of your business can minimize costs, and how your workflows affect your finances and taxes.

Even with efficient workflow management systems, leadership is still responsible for making relevant changes and optimizations for the workflow based on data and trends determined by the software. Implementing workflow management software is not a one-and-done activity but a step toward fostering a positive ecosystem of business and team management.

Workflow Automation Software

Workflow automation software is a part of overall workflow management software. Automated workflow software makes complex business processes easier to manage by removing the need for manual action. While many workforce management software provide workflow automation, it may not be the other way around.

Workflow automation systems work by creating custom triggers that can move data from one place or step to the next. Automated workflows move or transform this data based on your instructions. This hands-off approach streamlines repetitive and time-consuming work.

Most workflow automation software tools provide a visual aspect where you can easily build these automatic workflows without coding knowledge. Most also include built-in analytics to perform workflow analysis - pinpointing inefficiencies and helping you cut unnecessary steps or tasks.

The purpose of workflow automation is to streamline your team’s work. Instead of typing out and sending an email to the person in charge of the next step, the software will do it automatically. Instead of opening and printing specific file pages, the software triggers to do it for you. Instead of creating a client profile in your CRM when you receive an inquiry via a web form, the integrations will handle it for you.

Workflow automation software can save your team work hours weekly when the triggers and workflow is set up correctly.

How Can Automated Workflow Software Help Your Business?

Automated workflow software can help your business in several ways, from small, seemingly nondescript details, to eliminating massive time sinks.

• Eliminate paperwork
• Ensure full compliance with industry regulations or government legislation
• Improve workflow visibility at all stages
• Save time on approval processing
• Automatically delegate repetitive tasks to the system to save manpower
• Simplify the sales process
• Simplify client or employee onboarding and offboarding processes
• Automatically send emails to clients at certain stages of the sales or production funnel
• Create custom notifications when a workflow moves to the next step or department
• Provide easy follow-up when there is a delay
• Find bottlenecks and redundancies in your workflows and processes that can be corrections
• Save time on all accounting processes, like payroll, financial document preparation, tax preparation, and more

Let’s start with a free consultation to see how automated workflow software can help simplify your business’ accounting processes.

What To Look For In Workflow System Software

With all the options available for the best workflow software, how do you know which is right for your firm?

There are a few key aspects to consider when choosing workflow software. Even though your business has unique needs and operations, these aspects are universal for choosing software to grow your business.

Keep in mind that at Accountor CPA, we recommend workflow planning before choosing the optimal workflow software for your business. This way, you select workflow software that goes with your company - and not the other way around.

• Simplicity

  Your workflow tools should be user-friendly and easy to use, or else your team won’t use them! Finding software that doesn’t require coding knowledge (unless your team is full of web developers) will allow your staff to utilize all the functions easily.

• Cloud operations

  Cloud-based workflow software is easier to maintain, access, and upgrade. Importantly, it is more secure than on-premise versions.

• Integrations

  With companies using so many programs for various means, it’s important that your workflow application can integrate with the programs imperative to your operations.

• Customization

  No two businesses are alike, so no two companies will have the exact workflow needs. Find software that allows for easy customization so that you can manage and create workflows with ease.

• Scalability

  Most workflow software has limits on the number of users, tasks, or projects. Choose a workflow system that allows you to grow, upgrade, or shrink quickly if your business is seasonal.

• Reports and analytics

  Workflow analysis is key for optimizing workflows on any software. With reports and analytics, you can maximize your workflow efficiencies.

• Mobile app options

  Very few businesses operate at an office from 9 to 5 anymore. Your staff is on the go, so make sure they can access their workflow software on a mobile app easily.

Integrate Workflow Applications With Your Financial Data

The best workflow software will allow for integration with accounting software. While workflow and accounting may not seem inherently related processes, your workflow data can be crucial important for your accounting and financial health.

Your workflow software systems hold essential financial information about how your business operates.

• Which departments cost the most money?
• What projects or clients have the largest expenses for your business?
• What workflows have the highest ROI?
• What areas of the workflow are taking the most time?
• Which departments are the most cost-efficient?
• Which areas of the business are increasing or decreasing in cost?
• Are there any cost trends that can be identified?
• Are there any areas for growth or opportunity in your business?
• What are the tax implications, if any, of your workflow optimizations?

These are just a few of the questions that can be asked when using workflow management and automation software to understand its financial impact on your enterprise.

A professional accountant with Accountor CPA can help you answer these questions and find other ways that your unique workflows and software can impact your accounting. Finding areas to minimize, elements to grow, and incorporating these into your financial planning and tax strategy can help you save money - and time - in the long term.

Work With The Best Workflow Management and Automation Software

Several leading workflow software programs available on the market for management and automation. The one you choose to work with depends entirely on your company’s unique workflow systems, business goals, and internal structure.

With Accountor CPA, we use and recommend only the most secure and comprehensive business workflow software to ensure our clients get the most out of their services.

While these are not the only options, these are some of the most comprehensive workflow resources available.

Gravity Flow

WordPress is a massively popular website builder, and Gravity Flow is a workflow automation software that integrates seamlessly with this platform. The point-and-click integration means you do not need extensive coding knowledge to get the most out of this software.

This workflow app allows you to integrate customer and in-house workflows and integrates with other procedures to automate many aspects of the customer journey that begins on your website. It helps prevent micro-management, improve visibility about what customers are doing on your website, and integrates smoothly with your CRM and marketing systems.

Zapier

For a simple and user-friendly workforce management software, Zapier can be an excellent choice. It boasts over 500 integrations, including email marketing, social media, document sharing, and project management tools. Create custom workflows and notification settings so you know where a project is in the sequence at every moment.

Zapier simplifies the way data moves in a workflow, creating seamless transitions. This is one of the top workflow management apps for boosting productivity, and the integrations mean you get all the data you need about projects, teams, and workflows across platforms.

Pipedrive

One of the most highly touted workflow automation software programs available is Pipedrive. A combination of CRM and workflow automation apps, it provides several integrations to improve internal workflows and positivly affects customer relations.

It also allows for custom workflow management, or if you are a young company, it offers template workflows that you can build from. Its automated workflow functions, such as integrating notifications with Slack or automatically emailing a client when they come on board, provide widespread visibility to all relevant team members.

ProcessMaker

ProcessMaker is unique in that it is an open-source business process management software. This means it comes with great flexibility, relevant solutions and customization, and a very low cost, making it ideal for smaller businesses looking to start workflow automation.

This workflow software is designed to automate form-based, approval-driven workflow and improve how information moves between your company's data and systems. It allows for the simple creation of custom workflows and can save you time each week by automating and managing small details that eat your time.

Comprehensive Workflow Software Advice and More

If your business is looking to expand its workflow automation systems and needs the right software, Accountor CPA can help. Choosing and working with workflow apps require high level overviews and detailed examinations to ensure it is the best system for your business.

At Accountor CPA, we are dedicated to the financial growth of your business in every aspect. Ensuring you have effective workflow software for automation and management provides you with a more comprehensive understanding of the company's accounting, bookkeeping, and financial health of the company.

Choose workflow tools that contribute to your financial organization to help you simplify your accounting. Contact Accountor CPA for a free consultation to learn about accounting software, workflow software integration and more.