Why Data Entry is Killing Your Business
The Switch to Automation Improves Workflow and Increases Productivity
For most businesses, data entry is a necessary evil. So many metrics and data points need to be cataloged and inputted into spreadsheets and CRM systems to keep a business running, and after a while, it seems like you need a whole department just to keep up.
But efficiency is the key to success for any business, and if your employees are spending precious work hours on tedious tasks, it will take away from accomplishing your big goals. While some think data entry automation would require too much coding or be too hard to implement, failure to automate actually costs far more.
Manual Data Entry Leads to Burnout
Ask anyone who's ever worked an "office job." It gets old. It's somehow both boring and stressful. Monotonous tasks have a negative impact on mental health.
We naturally prefer work that is challenging and intellectually stimulating, so spending hours on tedious tasks can become dehumanizing. But data runs our digital work. Many businesses simply try to make the best of it or simply take the problem out of sight by outsourcing data entry, but even this option is often inefficient and financially costly.
That's why data entry automation is a smart solution for businesses that want to improve efficiency and worker morale. Data entry workflow software can help you achieve key goals and free up your staff to work on projects that contribute to the bigger picture.
Mistakes Can Be Costly
Manual data entry isn't only inefficient because it's tedious, but it’s also costly due to all the time lost due to mistakes. Your team is only human, and simple errors and oversights will happen from time to time, especially if they're inputting a large volume of data regularly.
Our minds aren't properly optimized to handle that kind of work for extended periods. So, data entry automation can reduce errors and ensure your team can input information as quickly as necessary without risking an increase in mistakes.
How Can Automation Help?
It’s evident that manual data entry presents a variety of problems. But how exactly can automation help? Here are a few practical ways that data entry automation can save time and increase productivity for your business.
Run Macros
Gone are the days when you had to know complicated programming commands to set up automation in a spreadsheet or database. Many programs, like RoboTask or Macro Express for Windows or Automater on Mac, can easily and intuitively automate processes that you complete every day.
If you frequently open a program, find information, copy it, and input it into a different program, you have a task that should be automated. Data entry workflow software can process many different types of documents including Word docs, PDFs, Excel sheets, and images.
As a rule of thumb, if you do the same thing more than once per week, consider automating it.
Put Your Data in One Place
The raw data businesses receive often isn't in a format that computer programs can easily digest. But data entry automation makes it simple to collect the necessary information and compile it in a compatible format for other programs.
For instance, an accounting team could use data entry workflow software to scan receipts, bills, invoices, and payments for data that could be quickly imported into accounting software. Many common programs like Quickbooks already have integration features to pull financial data from credit card or bank statements.
We developed MergeIt, a program that automates the process of merging PDFs. Anytime you have data in more than one place for the same project, put it together. This makes look-up easier later on and streamlines other processes.
Enhance the Customer Experience
Data entry workflow software can also make it easy to save data that can be utilized at a later date. This data can help to enhance the customer experience and ensure you continue to provide outstanding service.
For example, you can use automation to quickly catalog the email address of everyone who purchases a product from your online store, then send follow-up emails with special offers and discounts. Numerous relationship marketing softwares have email triggers or automation features available. Your existing content management system (CMS) may also have email trigger automation features that you can use for more effective customer follow-up.
Make Scalability Possible
Data entry automation makes it easy to scale your business processes without hiring additional employees.
The larger your organization grows, the more data you'll need to process to keep your systems running smoothly. But it may not be cost-effective to hire new employees just to help with the added data entry.
Instead, you can train your existing team to use data entry workflow software to expedite tasks and process large amounts of information without wasting additional work hours.
Enhance Employee Workflow
Ultimately, data entry automation is designed to enhance employee workflow, not completely replace human beings. No software is perfect, and you may still need a human being to double-check the data to keep an eye out for errors.
But data entry workflow software can make the process much faster and more efficient, allowing human employees more time to focus on finding ways to utilize that data to better serve customers.
How to Use Automation to Improve Workflow
If you need some help getting data entry automation to improve workflow, here are a few simple tips you can follow
Decide Which Processes to Automate:
The first step is to decide which of your regular processes makes sense to automate. While most simple tasks can benefit from data entry automation, it ultimately depends on your business and what you feel comfortable leaving up to the computer.
For instance, maybe you want to start automating some of your marketing but leave the creative brainstorming to human beings. You could leave your content creation efforts up to your staff but use social media scheduling and email marketing software to ensure everything goes out on time.
Talk to Key Actors:
Next, you should talk to the team in charge of the process you're looking to automate and find out which tasks are the most complex and time-consuming. Then brainstorms ways that data entry automation can help.
Say your IT department is spending too much time updating your databases and wants to automate some of that process. Before you do anything, speak with each team that inputs information into these databases and find a strategy that will make sense for everyone involved.
Gather the Data
Identify the specific data sets you want to input and create a clear plan for migrating that information using your data entry workflow software. Maybe you want to import all your customer data into CRM software to better manage your clients. You should first determine where that data currently lives and create a plan for cataloging it and importing it into the new system.
Test the System
It may be helpful to start with a small task or data set to see how it works before implementing it on a larger scale.
Say, you notice your staff struggling to understand a particular software. You may decide to schedule a training or switch to a different program before you begin using it on a companywide level.
That way, you can troubleshoot problems and brainstorm solutions before fully integrating data entry automation into your daily workflow.
Launch
Once you feel confident that you have a clear plan for using data entry automation in your regular business practices, you can start using your system to streamline tasks and improve efficiency. Continue to experiment and enhance to reduce bottlenecks and find a plan that works more naturally for your business.
Talk to an Expert
If you need help implementing data entry automation into your everyday business processes, Soluntech can help. We can show you how to get the most out of your data entry workflow software and take your productivity to new heights. Contact us today to schedule a free pre-consultation.