10 Business Automations You Can Set Up in Under 30 Minutes

You do not need a six-month IT project to start automating your business. Some of the highest-impact automations take less time to set up than your average lunch break. The key is knowing which processes deliver the best return on the least investment of time.

After helping hundreds of small and mid-sized businesses streamline operations, we have identified the ten automations that consistently deliver the fastest ROI with the simplest setup. Each one can be configured in under 30 minutes using tools like Make.com or Zapier.

Priority matrix showing estimated setup time versus business impact for each automation.

1. New Customer Welcome Email Sequence

Setup time: ~5 minutes. When a new customer record is created in your CRM or accounting platform, automatically trigger a welcome email with onboarding instructions, account details, and key contacts. This eliminates the manual task of remembering to send introductions and ensures every customer gets a consistent first impression.

2. Order Confirmation Notifications

Setup time: ~10 minutes. Connect your order management system to Slack, email, or SMS to instantly notify your team when a new order arrives. No more checking dashboards every hour. Your warehouse or fulfillment team gets real-time alerts the moment an order needs attention.

3. Invoice Creation from Completed Orders

Setup time: ~15 minutes. When an order status changes to "shipped" or "fulfilled," automatically generate an invoice in QuickBooks or Xero. This single automation can save finance teams 5-10 hours per week and drastically reduce the gap between delivery and billing.

4. Low Inventory Alerts

Setup time: ~10 minutes. Set threshold-based triggers that fire when stock levels drop below your reorder point. The alert can go to a Slack channel, an email, or even directly create a draft purchase order. Pair this with your inventory sync for maximum accuracy.

5. Lead Capture to CRM

Setup time: ~8 minutes. Connect your website forms, landing pages, or chatbot to your CRM automatically. Every inquiry gets logged, tagged, and assigned without a single copy-paste. This is one of the simplest automations with the most immediate payoff for sales teams.

6. Daily Sales Summary Report

Setup time: ~20 minutes. Aggregate the previous day's orders, revenue, and key metrics into a formatted email or Slack message delivered every morning at 8 AM. Business owners get a snapshot of performance without logging into multiple dashboards.

7. Shipping Label Generation

Setup time: ~20 minutes. When an order is confirmed, automatically push the shipping details to ShipStation or your carrier of choice. The label is generated, the tracking number is captured, and your customer receives a shipping notification, all without manual intervention.

8. Expense Receipt Capture

Setup time: ~25 minutes. Forward receipts to a dedicated email address and let an automation parse the vendor, amount, and date, then log it in your accounting software. This eliminates the shoebox-of-receipts problem and keeps your books clean in real time.

9. Customer Feedback Collection

Setup time: ~25 minutes. Trigger a feedback survey 3-7 days after order delivery. Responses are logged in a spreadsheet or CRM, and negative scores can automatically alert your support team for immediate follow-up.

10. Payment Reminder Sequences

Setup time: ~30 minutes. Set up a cascading reminder sequence for overdue invoices: a gentle nudge at 3 days past due, a firmer reminder at 7 days, and a final notice at 14 days. Companies using automated payment reminders typically see a 25-35% reduction in days sales outstanding.

Combined, these 10 automations can save your team over 30 hours per week.

How to Prioritize Your Quick Wins

Start with the automations that address your biggest pain point. If late invoices are hurting cash flow, begin with automation number 3 or 10. If your sales team is drowning in manual data entry, start with number 5. The beauty of these quick wins is that each one builds momentum and confidence for the next.

Not sure which automation to tackle first? Our free readiness quiz can help you identify the workflows draining the most time and money. And if you want to see how all ten fit together, check out our guide on the first 8 workflows every growing business should automate for a strategic sequencing approach.

"The best time to automate was yesterday. The second best time is the next 30 minutes."

Each of these automations is a building block. Alone, they save hours. Together, they transform your operations from reactive to proactive, giving you the bandwidth to focus on growth instead of grunt work.