Process automation for business: consultant UK

19^th October 2026

We have serious experience in streamlining and automating processes.

As a business process automation consultant based in the UK but with global experience, we can show you how to automate your business workflows to save huge amounts of time, which obviously equates to money. Imagine a scenario where a company bills 10 clients monthly for work on 20 sites, so around 2 sites per client.

What does a manual billing process look like?

To correctly bill, Quantity Surveyors will look at the costs incurred to last month and costs to date, which are provided by the accounting function in most companies. Each month, a surveyor will therefore be asking for 40 reports from the accounting package to give cumulative costs and, by subtraction, current month costs. Accounts will usually run these reports and provide the surveyor with 40 PDF documents.

It is a huge mistake for a surveyor to not bill a client for all costs incurred in a period, or for the surveyor to not be aware of a deficit, so this is necessary each month. When the surveyor has these cost reports, they will tally up work done, and ensure all costs are covered when counting all progress, which comes from the various site project teams.

Management will be consulted to permit any deficit to be ignored in billing, or to consult on how to enhance billing where a deficit cannot be excused.

As can be seen, the number of interactions between different job roles is enormous, as is the paperwork generated, and yet for most construction businesses, this is what happens each month.

How does automation change the billing process?

Automation is the trick of having management software query the accounts package directly and provide a total on the project page without anyone in accounts being asked to make a report.

When the surveyor provides their billing and the figures are entered, automation checks the figures and, if there is a deficit in billing, flags it directly to management and alerts the surveyor that the billing is being reviewed. Permission to allow the deficit or an instruction to enhance billing will appear on the surveyor's screen without anyone having to remember to check the figures.

All the manual, repetitive and easily forgotten elements of the billing process are thus automated, allowing key staff more time to perform other tasks. When the other tasks involve more cashflow or profit to the business, automation yields profit. You can read the full story in our construction billing management case study.

Which business processes can be automated?

Billing is just one example. Any process that follows rules and repeats regularly is a strong candidate, including:

Reporting, where figures are pulled from several systems and stitched together by hand each week or month.
Approvals, where requests are routed to the right person and chased automatically until a decision is made.
Stock and ordering, as in our construction stock management system.
Drawings and documents, as in our Solidworks automation for facade engineering, where production drawings and cutting lists are generated from the model.
Engineering calculations, such as sizing cast-in embedments across whole buildings in a single pass.

How do you know if a process is worth automating?

Ask four questions. Does it happen often? Does it follow the same steps each time? Does information pass between several people or systems? Would a mistake cost money? If the answer to most of these is yes, automation will almost certainly pay for itself. Our business analysis service helps you find these processes and rank them by the value they would return.

Will automation replace my staff?

In our experience, it does the opposite. Automation takes away the chasing, copying and checking that nobody enjoys, and gives skilled people their time back for the work that actually needs their judgement. Surveyors spend more time surveying, accounts spend more time on accounts, and managers only hear about the exceptions that need them.

Which software can you automate?

We can join any of the Microsoft 365 packages together seamlessly, and have also connected Primavera, Solidworks, AutoCAD, Revit, and custom software packages together. Whatever the platform you use, we can help, and as we code in any language, we are confident that you will not have a setup that might defeat us. Where possible, we build on the systems you already license, so you gain the benefits without a pile of new subscriptions.

Ready to find out how much time your business could save? Let's talk.