Data entry rarely looks like a big problem. It's a few minutes here and there: copying a customer's details from an email into a spreadsheet, retyping an order into your accounts, updating a client list after a call.
Add those minutes up across a week and a whole team, and it's often hours. It's also where small mistakes come from, because every time something is retyped, there's another chance to get it wrong.
Here's how to work out what can be automated, and how it usually works.
Step 1: Follow one piece of information
Pick something that comes in often, like a new order or a new enquiry. Then follow it. Where does it arrive first? Where do you copy it to next? And after that?
A typical trail looks like this: an order arrives by email, gets copied into a spreadsheet, and then gets typed again into the accounting system. That's two copies of the same information, made by hand.
Step 2: Find the copying, not the thinking
Go through each step and ask one question: am I making a decision here, or just moving information? Moving a name, an amount or a date from one place to another is a good candidate for automation. Deciding whether to accept a booking or how to price a job usually isn't, at least not yet.
Step 3: Decide where the information should live
Automating data entry works best when there's one main home for each kind of information, like one customer list or one order sheet, with everything else updated from it. If you're not sure which tool should be the main one, choose the one your team already checks most.
How the automated version works
- The information arrives by email, a web form, WhatsApp or another tool.
- The details are pulled out and checked. Names, amounts and dates are picked out and checked against simple rules, like "the total can't be empty".
- They're added everywhere they need to go, once. Anything that doesn't look right is flagged for a person to check.
Nobody has to learn a new system. Your spreadsheet and your accounts stay where they are. They just fill themselves in.
A note on customer data
If the information includes customers' personal details, think about who can see it and where it's stored. A good automation only moves the data it needs, and keeps access limited to the people who should have it. In Singapore, the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) applies to how you collect and use that data, whether it's typed by hand or not. The Personal Data Protection Commission publishes guides for businesses on what that means in practice.
Want it done for you?
We build data entry automation around the tools you already use. See how we'd automate it, or book a fit call and walk us through where your information goes today.
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