Procedure AI
Your departments' processes
HR, finance, purchasing, production. We have been automating company processes for thirty years: what changes now is not whether they get automated, but who runs them.
We know them because we have been inside them
In thirty years we have written hundreds of applications for dozens of companies, and to write them we went inside their departments: finance, HR, purchasing, production, quality, warehouse. We have seen them from the inside, one by one, and many of those processes we have already automated.
There is a less obvious reason why we understand them: besides IT we have run and still run other businesses, from catering to food production to an accounting and payroll practice. We have seen the numbers, the staff and the paperwork from the side of the people who put up with them, not only of the people who computerise them. It shows in the first meeting.
So the question “can it be automated?” barely comes up: in the vast majority of cases a process that repeats can be automated. What we weigh together is not whether it is possible, but whether it is worth it.
The four criteria, in half an hour
We apply them to ourselves first, and you can apply them without us. If a process meets all four, it becomes a procedure and it is worth it. If one is missing, part of it gets automated and the rest stays human.
It repeats, often enough
Ten times a year does not pay for the writing. Ten times a month does. How many times is the first question, not the last.
It can be described without "it depends"
If whoever does it can explain it in ten minutes and the exceptions are few and nameable, it can be written. If the explanation starts with “it depends on the case”, it is not yet a process: it is a craft, and it has to be settled between people first.
The outcome can be checked from outside
There must be a check that says whether it went well, runnable by the machine. Without it the agent does not know it has finished, and automation that does not know whether it worked is worse than doing it by hand.
The boundary is clear
You must be able to say precisely where the procedure stops and who takes the case next. Anything that takes judgement sits beyond the boundary, and stays there.
Department by department
Not four groups: the offices that actually exist in a company, one by one. For each, the processes that become procedures — and, said every time, where the machine stops.
IT is not on this list because it has a site of its own: AI ServiceDesk. What you find here are the processes nobody expects to be automatable.
Human resources
- A new hire's first day: records, contract and documents to sign, equipment, access — one sequence with its approvals, instead of ten requests scattered across three offices.
- The last day: closures, returns, service certificate, with the list of what was done.
- The requests that come back every month: a copy of a payslip, a service certificate, updating one's own details — identity verified, document fetched from where it lives, delivered.
- People's deadlines: fixed-term contracts, probation periods, periodic medicals, mandatory training. The procedure warns whoever has to act before, not after.
Stays with a person: appraisals, pay, disciplinary matters and every delicate conversation.
Finance and accounting
- Accounts payable: the invoice that arrives by email, the data extracted, the check against order and delivery note, the entry prepared — with only the ones that don't match brought forward.
- Overnight reconciliations: open items, balances, differences. In the morning, the list of lines that don't add up instead of the whole board.
- The receivables diary: reminders to customers, due-date notices, statements prepared and ready to send.
- The closing checks, the ones redone identically every month.
Stays with a person: every payment decision and the adjusting entries.
Treasury
- Bank flows: statements downloaded, receipts reconciled automatically, differences flagged to whoever has to look at them.
- Payment instructions: prepared and verified, sent only after the yes of whoever has to give it.
- The cash position ready every morning, without someone assembling it by hand from three systems.
Stays with a person: the choice of what to pay and when.
Purchasing
- The purchase request with its approval chain by amount: it waits where it should, whoever has to answer knows it, and the history says who decided.
- The supplier order generated from the approved request, with no re-keying.
- Contract deadlines and automatic renewals: flagged before, not the day after.
- The match between ordered, received and invoiced, with only the differences coming out.
Stays with a person: choosing the supplier and negotiating, always.
Sales
- The quote built from the price list with that customer's terms, ready to review.
- “Where is my order?”: an immediate answer with what the business system and the carrier say, instead of an internal phone call.
- Commissions calculated on what was actually collected.
- Customer records kept current and free of duplicates — the thing that ruins every sales analysis.
Stays with a person: the negotiation, the discount and the decision to make an exception.
Customer service
- Taking in and routing what arrives by email, portal and phone, with the request already classified.
- The questions that always come back: where a shipment is, a copy of a document, which terms were applied.
- Complaints: opened, documented with evidence gathered from the systems, and taken to whoever decides.
Stays with a person: the complaint that takes judgement, and every negotiation.
Logistics and warehouse
- Delivery notes and the check between order, picking and note.
- Stock levels: alignment, items below threshold, alerts to whoever has to reorder.
- Stocktakes: lists prepared, counts compared, differences brought forward.
- Shipments: tracking and a warning when a delivery is late, before the customer calls.
Stays with a person: the physical movements and the stocking decisions.
Production
- Start-of-shift checks: that everything needed is on, connected and up to date, before somebody notices because it has stopped.
- Recovery after a stoppage: the sequence that is always the same, done the same way at three in the morning too.
- Progress collected from the line systems, with deviations flagged.
Stays with a person: everything touching physical safety and machinery: we do not go there.
Quality
- Non-conformities: opened, documented with evidence gathered from the systems, routed and chased until they are closed.
- Deadlines: instrument calibrations, certifications, scheduled audits.
- Audit evidence, collected from several systems and put together in the format the auditor asks for.
Stays with a person: assessing the non-conformity and the corrective action.
Health and safety
- People's deadlines: medicals, mandatory training, issuing protective equipment.
- Registers and certificates collected and kept ready, instead of hunting for them when the inspection arrives.
- The warnings to whoever has to act, with time to act.
Stays with a person: the risk assessment and every decision about people.
Legal and contracts
- Deadlines and automatic renewals watched, with the warning before the cancellation window.
- Collecting signatures and filing the signed copies in order.
- A contract file reassembled from wherever the pieces actually live.
Stays with a person: interpretation, negotiation and legal opinion.
Management and controlling
- Recurring reports prepared and distributed on time, always in the same format.
- Indicators gathered from several systems and ready in the morning.
- Deviations flagged — not the whole board, the lines that don't add up.
Stays with a person: the decision, which is the job.
Facilities
- Planned maintenance and plant deadlines: extinguishers, lifts, air conditioning.
- The vehicle fleet: road tax, inspection, insurance, lease expiries.
- Badges and physical access, aligned with who actually joins and leaves.
- Rooms and equipment: bookings, preparation, flagging what is missing.
Stays with a person: choosing suppliers and the physical work.
A new person starts on Monday
The process we are asked about most, and the best example of where the machine stops.
- Where it starts
- on 3 November someone joins finance, permanent contract, Lissone site
- What it understands
- Someone joining. From role and site it works out which sequence applies: there is no generic “first day”, there is the one for a finance clerk at Lissone.
- What it prepares,
doing nothing yet - domain account and mailboxpermissions of the "finance" profileapplications for the role on the assigned computerthe site's printers, encryption, backup connecteddocuments to sign on day one
- Where it stops
- the finance manager sees the exact list of permissions and authorisesIT confirms which computer is assigneduntil they answer, no account exists
- When it runs
- The sequence starts on the Friday, not on Monday morning: the computer is ready before the person arrives. Every step verifies it succeeded before moving to the next.
- If something fails
- It does not leave a half-done arrival — the worst state, an account that exists with uncertain permissions. It stops, says how far it got, and hands the case to a person with the list of what is left.
- What stays written
- Who joined, when, with which permissions, authorised by whom. In two years, when that person changes role, it is the list you start from to take away what they no longer need: the step that by hand never happens.