Back Office Automation
The admin layer that quietly consumes your team’s week — handled by systems instead.
Back office automation replaces manual document handling, data entry, and approval chasing with systems that do it continuously and leave an audit trail. SBD builds document-processing agents, cross-system data sync, and approval workflows on low-code platforms, usually going live within two to four weeks per workflow.
What usually breaks
Data is entered more than once
The same information is typed into a form, then a spreadsheet, then an accounting system — three chances to introduce an error nobody catches.
Documents arrive as PDFs and images
Invoices, POs and delivery notes come in unstructured, so someone reads each one and re-keys the fields that matter.
Approvals stall in inboxes
Requests sit unanswered with no visibility into who is holding them up, and chasing becomes its own job.
Systems drift out of sync
CRM, ops tool and accounting each hold a slightly different version of the truth, and reconciliation is a monthly archaeology exercise.
The systems we ship
Document processing agents
Agents that read incoming invoices, POs and delivery notes, extract the fields you need, and file them into the right system — flagging anything ambiguous for a human.
Data entry automation
Information captured once and propagated everywhere it is needed, so re-keying disappears along with the errors it causes.
Internal approval workflows
Structured routing with visible status and automatic escalation, so approvals stop depending on someone remembering to follow up.
Cross-system data sync
Reliable syncing between CRM, operations and accounting, with conflict handling that surfaces disagreements instead of silently picking one.
Typical Stack
- Airtable
- SmartSuite
- Make.com
- n8n
- Retool
- OpenAI / Claude
- Supabase
- Google Workspace APIs
Where we have done this
Order & Dispatch Management System
— Building Material SupplierOrder intake, dispatch and invoicing unified for a building material supplier — removing duplicate entry across several stakeholder groups.
Multi-User Production Dashboard
— Copper Wire ManufacturerAutomated report generation and direct printing replaced a manual reporting and paperwork loop.
Back Office Operations, answered
Does this mean replacing back office staff?
Not in the work we do. The pattern that holds up is automating the mechanical parts — re-keying, chasing, filing — so the people who understand your exceptions spend their time on those instead. Teams that cut the people along with the admin usually lose the knowledge that made the exceptions manageable.
How accurate is automated document processing?
High on consistent document types, less so on messy or highly variable ones. We build in confidence thresholds: anything the system is unsure about goes to a person rather than through. That keeps accuracy high without pretending the extraction is perfect.
Where do we start if everything is manual?
With whichever workflow is highest volume and most repetitive — that is where the payback is fastest and where the team feels it first. We map the current process before proposing anything, because the bottleneck is often not where people expect.
Related solutions
Most operations problems cross more than one boundary. These are the areas that usually come up alongside back office operations.
Not sure where the bottleneck is?
That is what the free workflow audit is for. We map how your operations actually run and tell you what is worth automating — before anyone talks about scope or price.
Claim a Free Workflow Audit