Top business tasks to start automating

Running a small business means wearing a lot of hats, and time is one of your most precious resources. If you’re drowning in endless approval emails, manually tracking budgets, or juggling deliveries, it’s time to hit the reset button. What if you could automate those tedious, time-consuming tasks and free up hours in your week? With smart Amazon Business tools like Approval Workflows, Budget Management, and Manage Your Delivery, you can do just that.

So what is automation?

Procurement automation is using tools like the ones found in Amazon Business to set specific permissions for approval routing, supplier data, and more. By standardizing workflows these tools reduce manual errors, and therefore risks of human errors, security breaches, and compliance failures. Automation can also help streamline your operations by cutting down on manual work, giving you time back to focus on growing your business. Let’s take a closer look at how these three key features can help you work smarter, not harder.

Approvals & Guided Buying

Tired of spending hours sorting through approvals? Approvals lets you set up a seamless approval process, so you can say goodbye to endless back-and-forth. Team members can route requests, get notifications, and set reminders—all while you maintain control over spending limits and assign approvers. It’s a win-win: you save time, reduce manual reviews, and ensure compliance with your spending policies. Guided Buying takes it a step further and helps you gain more control over employee spending, with guardrails that let you steer employees to preferred products and suppliers.

Key benefits:

• Control purchasing: Drive buyers to purchase responsibly with policies that direct them to the products they should buy, and help them avoid those they shouldn't
• Streamline the buying experience: With Guided Buying you can set preferences for certain suppliers and products with easy-to-see visual reminders, helping buyers stick to your policies
• Scalability: Easily adapts to the size of your business, growing with your organization
• Simplify approval process: Use batch approvals, instead of reviewing orders individually for faster turnaround

Budget Management

Managing your spending is key to keeping your small business financially healthy and successful. With Budget Management, you can easily set and track budgets while making purchasing simpler for team members buying. This tool gives you real-time insights into where your money is going, so you can spot savings opportunities and adjust your spending as needed. Stay in control, make smarter decisions, and keep your finances running smoothly.

Key benefits:

• Simple, transparent budgets: Set spend thresholds to get ahead of overspending and make your budgets visible to your buyers so they can make informed purchases
• Real-time monitoring: Allows for active adjustments, cost reductions, and better resource allocation
  
• Consolidated purchase orders: Saves time by creating one PO instead of multiple, manual orders 
• Allocate funds proactively: Create allocation rules to automatically allocate budgets to new users

Manage Your Delivery

Do you have a whole day dedicated to processing deliveries? Are packages being delivered during non business hours or when you’re not there? Manage Your Delivery makes your delivery processes more efficient, cost-effective, and customer-friendly by automating routine delivery processes that cost most small business owners hours of valuable time.

Key benefits:

• Custom delivery windows: Choose preferred weekdays and times to receive shipments. Opt out of deliveries on business closure days and holidays
• Seamless delivery: Provide instructions for how you want shipments delivered. Identify locations such as a loading dock or mail room or front office where shipments can be delivered, provide access code to enter your building etc.
• Flexible delivery preferences: Update your individual or shared addresses, edit delivery preferences, and continue to receive your shipments when you need them
• Consolidate shipments: Business Prime members can now choose up to two weekdays to receive eligible shipments from Amazon Business. Enjoy fewer weekly deliveries and boxes. Focus on daily productivity instead of daily deliveries

So how can these automation tools help you?

Automation isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s a must-have for small businesses looking to stay competitive. By automating routine tasks like approvals, budget tracking, and delivery management, you can shift your focus to more strategic initiatives that drive growth and innovation.

With tools like these, you’ll gain real-time insights, improve operational efficiency, and make better-informed decisions for your business. Ready to reclaim your time and unlock your business’s full potential? Let automation do the heavy lifting so you can focus on what you do best—running and growing your business.