How to Fire Yourself from Admin Work… with AI’s Help!

Whatever type of business you operate, you likely do so with the intention of assisting your clients, customers, or patrons with a specific goal. It isn’t as though you started a business because you wanted to do all the administrative work… right?

Fortunately, modern technology offers a way out, especially now that artificial intelligence is readily available. Let’s go over three ways that AI could help do the busy work on your behalf, and touch on just how much it could wind up saving you.

How Much Does Admin Work Really Cost?

Let’s say that you had the choice of hiring someone to take care of your admin needs, or turning to AI for these tasks to be completed. 

If you paid a person $30 an hour for a full-time position, and four hours of each day was spent on these administrative tasks, that’s 20 hours per week that this employee is spending on admin, and $600 in payroll invested into getting these tasks done (not including benefits). At the end of the year, that’s $30,000 or so spent on admin alone.

Now, depending on how much you hate admin work, you might say that's a fair cost. Plus, it creates a job, which is a good thing. The price may be a little steep, but it isn't necessarily prohibitive.

Not so fast, though… we still need to examine the cost of an AI tool. Typically, these programs are subscription-based and cost about $20 per month or $240 per year.

So, $30,000 or $240 and the funds to hire another productive employee… which sounds better to you?

Today’s Tools Make Automation Easier

This kind of modern AI isn’t so much about building a better mousetrap as it is about allowing all your other mousetraps to work together. Think about some of the software your business already relies on—email, calendar application, customer relationship management software, your accounting tools. Ordinarily, someone like you would have to move information between these systems, taking time and increasing the risk of user error.

However, by defining the rules you want an AI platform to follow, you can have all of these different systems work together to meet your goals. Even better, the processes become automated, freeing the person who was once responsible to pursue other goals.

Three Easy Tasks to Automate

Let’s examine three basic activities that tend to take more time than you’d like.

Scheduling a Meeting

Are you used to the process of getting anything on the schedule taking a lot more time or effort than it should, with chains of emails needed before any meetings could be booked? Tools are available that allow a contact to check your availability and book a time, creating an event with a single click and avoiding the rigamarole that would otherwise preclude any appointments.

Managing the Inbox

The email inbox can easily become a massive time sink, as different correspondences need to be forwarded and followed up on. Setting up rules via AI lets you not only sort emails but also take additional steps and automatically fulfill different needs. For instance, when receiving an email with “invoice” in the subject line or body, it can automatically be forwarded to accounting and archived. If a lead fills out a form, it’s possible to automatically generate a task in the CRM to follow up with that lead in a few days.

Entering Data

How often have you found yourself holding a business card or printed invoice in one hand and updating the information on your computer with the other? Scanning tools and applications that leverage AI can make populating the right software far faster, more accurate, and easier than manual entry.

How Will You Use All Your Reclaimed Time?

By automating your more menial tasks, you can instead focus your energies on the higher-value business activities you have. That said, it is important not to bite off more than you can chew. Pick one thing and automate it, tracking the time you save and applying it to your other tasks and responsibilities. What would you commit all this time to accomplishing? The world is, as they say, your oyster.

Atech MSP is here to assist you in identifying and implementing your most promising opportunities for AI and automation, while also helping you save time and money on your other IT needs. Give us a call at (888) 814-4843 to learn more about what we have to offer.