How to decide what to automate: a break-even checklist

Automate a workflow when it has a useful outcome, runs often enough to repay the work, and has an owner who can handle exceptions. A manual task that takes ten minutes is not automatically a good candidate. Start by finding out what happens if nobody does it at all.

1. Name the result and who uses it

Write one sentence: “When this happens, this person needs this result to make this decision.” For a weekly operations report, ask its reader to show you the last decision it changed. If no one can name one, try removing the report or reducing its frequency before building a pipeline.

A good first candidate is small and repeatable: for example, copying approved invoices into a review queue with a known format. A weak candidate is “handle customer complaints” because the inputs, authority and acceptable outcomes vary.

2. Calculate the break-even point

Multiply runs per month by the time saved per run, then subtract the monthly time for review, exceptions and maintenance. Divide the one-time setup and testing effort by the resulting net monthly hours. If the net is zero or negative, there is no time payback at that volume.

Say a task runs 24 times a month. It takes 15 minutes by hand and still takes 5 minutes to check after automation. That saves 4 hours a month before overhead. Budget 1 hour for exceptions and maintenance, leaving 3 hours. If setup and testing take 12 hours, the break-even point is about 4 months. At half the volume, the same costs push it out to 12 months. These are estimates; track the first month and replace them with observations.

3. Pilot the narrowest reliable part

• Pick one input format and one expected result.
• Keep a named person responsible for the output and give them a manual fallback.
• Run the pilot against recent examples, including a duplicate, a missing field and a bad input.
• Record time saved, how many cases needed intervention and what happened when a run failed.
• Expand only if the outcome improves and the team can keep the workflow running.

Time is one measure. If your goal is fewer missed invoices or quicker replies, measure that directly alongside the hours. The result should still matter when the demo is over.