Process selection and rollout
Small business automation: start with one process you can check
Most small businesses do not need forty automations. They need one dull, repeated job that runs the same way each time and that someone can check before it matters. Score your candidates, then see one invoice-reminder design from input record to recovery.
First-process worksheet
- Invoice reminders4 of 5 tests
- Review requests after a sale4 of 5 tests
- Low-stock alerts3 of 5 tests
- Weekly business summary2 of 5 tests
Illustrative scoring for a typical shop. Replace it with your own.
Choose the first process with five tests
Frequency and minutes saved are the obvious filters. The ones that decide whether an automation survives are the last three: where the data comes from, what a wrong output costs and whether a person can look before it leaves.
| Candidate | Repeats weekly or more | Rule you can write down | Inputs already in a system | Wrong output is cheap to catch | Works with review before it goes out | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Invoice reminders | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partly | Yes | 4 of 5 |
| Review requests after a sale | Yes | Yes | Partly | Yes | Yes | 4 of 5 |
| Low-stock alerts | Partly | Yes | Partly | Yes | Yes | 3 of 5 |
| Weekly business summary | Yes | Partly | Partly | Partly | Yes | 2 of 5 |
Our reading: review requests and invoice reminders tie on score. If you invoice on payment terms, start with invoice reminders, because the payoff is cash collected earlier rather than minutes saved, and the approval step covers the one test it only partly passes. If you take payment at the till, start with review requests.
What each process looks like in practice
For each one: what ZeroTwo does, what stays with you, and where the limit is. The limits matter more than the features.
Invoice and payment reminders
- ZeroTwo does
- Reads the open invoices you supply or connect, groups them by days overdue and drafts a short reminder per customer using only the fields on the record.
- You still do
- Approves each batch, decides what to do about disputes and part payments, and sends nothing until they have looked.
- Limit
- We do not describe payment reconciliation across your bank and accounting tools as something to switch on. Treat the payment status you feed in as the source of truth.
Customer follow-ups and review requests
- ZeroTwo does
- Drafts a follow-up that mentions what the customer bought, once per order, on the schedule you pick.
- You still do
- Sets who is allowed to be contacted and reads the first batch before anything is sent.
- Limit
- Quality depends on the purchase list you give it. A missing name or product gives a vague message.
Low-stock alerts and reorder notes
- ZeroTwo does
- Reads a stock export or sheet, flags items under thresholds you set and drafts a reorder note for the supplier.
- You still do
- Places the order. The draft goes out when you send it, not on its own.
- Limit
- Only as current as the stock file. If your stock lives in a till system, check it can export before you plan around it.
Weekly business summary
- ZeroTwo does
- Turns the exports or sheets you point it at into a plain-language summary, with the figures it used listed beside each statement.
- You still do
- Checks the numbers against the source before anyone acts on them, and defines what counts as unusual.
- Limit
- A summary can be fluent and wrong. Keep the cited figures next to the text so a reader can check them in a minute.
Worked design, not a recorded run
An invoice reminder with approval, exceptions and recovery
This is how we would set up the job, so you can judge whether it fits yours. It carries no timings or accuracy figures because none were measured for this page. For the agent version, see how ZeroTwo describes it: walk through invoice collection follow-ups.
The input record
One row per open invoice. If a field is not in your export, add it before you build anything.
- Invoice number
- INV-0000 (a unique ID, used to avoid double sends)
- Customer and contact email
- Required to draft anything
- Amount due and currency
- Taken from the record, never worked out by the model
- Due date
- Drives the days-overdue groups
- Status
- Open, paid, disputed or on a payment plan
- Last reminder sent
- Written back after each send
Weekly run picks open invoices
RuleOn the schedule you choose, select invoices that are open and past due. This is a filter, not a model decision.
Completeness check
RuleNo email, amount or due date means no draft. The invoice lands in a short needs-data list for a person to fix.
Paid check before drafting
LookupCompare against the freshest payment source you have. If a payment is newer than the export, skip the invoice and log why.
Draft one reminder per customer
AIThe model writes from the record fields only: invoice number, amount, due date. It may adjust tone, never terms or amounts.
Owner approves, edits or skips
PersonA batch view shows invoice, draft and reason. Nothing is sent before this step, and edits are the signal that the draft needs fixing.
Send, then write back
RuleRecord the date against each invoice. The next run skips anything reminded inside the gap you set.
When the data is not clean
| Situation | Rule | Who decides |
|---|---|---|
| Customer data is incomplete | Hold the invoice, draft nothing, list it as needs-data. | You fix the record |
| Customer already paid | Skip when the payment source shows a payment newer than the export. Log the skip. | Rule, you review the log |
| Disputed or part-paid invoice | Exclude by status. These need a conversation, not a template. | You |
| Several invoices for one customer | Combine into one message so the customer is not emailed three times. | Rule, you approve |
| Run stops halfway | The last-reminder field means a re-run skips what already went out. Check what your account shows for a failed run before relying on this. | You review run history |
| Draft states a wrong amount | Amounts are copied from the record and compared with it before approval. Reject any draft that differs. | You, at approval |
Roll it out in five steps, and measure before you scale
Return on a small automation is easy to overstate. Count your own baseline first, and compare it with review time, not with zero.
Score
Fill in the worksheet for your own candidates. Choose the one that passes the most tests.
Write the rule on paper
Who is included, when, what the message says, who approves. If you cannot write it, do not automate it yet.
Dry run on last month
Run it on old data and compare with what you actually did. Nothing is sent.
Approve every send
Run live for a few cycles with a person approving each item. Track edits and misses.
Loosen one category
Only where drafts were accepted without edits. Keep approval on money and on anything sensitive.
Net value per month, in plain terms
(manual minutes per run minus review minutes per run) x runs per month, valued at your hourly cost, minus plan and credit cost.
- Baseline
- Minutes the job takes you now, per run, and how often it runs.
- Review time
- Minutes you spend approving each automated batch.
- Edit rate
- Share of drafts you changed. Falling edits are the real signal.
- Errors caught
- Wrong amounts, wrong people, duplicates found at approval.
- Cost
- Plan price plus the credits the runs used, per month.
Check your tools against the connectors list first
Some of the tools below are the ones a small business is most likely to use. Shopify and Calendly are not on the connectors page, so do not plan around them. QuickBooks appears in the invoice follow-up agent description, not on the connectors list. If your tool is missing, export a CSV and give ZeroTwo the file.
The full list is on the connectors page.
- Gmail
- Google Calendar
- Google Drive
- Outlook Email
- Stripe
- Square
- PayPal
Xero- HubSpot
- Airtable
What to budget for
Runs draw from a monthly credit pool, so heavier tasks use more. Free starts with 100 credits plus 20 bonus credits every day you log in, and has no Work agent; the Work agent starts on Plus. Test one process on Free if you only want to try the drafting, then see what a real run uses before you pick a plan. Full plan comparison.
Free
$0/mo
No card required
- 100 free credits to start
- +20 bonus credits every day you log in
- 1 file upload per message
Plus
$14.99/mo
Adds the Work agent
- 1,000 free Auto requests / month
- 1,650 monthly credits
- +20 bonus credits every day you log in
- Unlimited fast models in chat
- Access to Work agent
- 150 deep researches / month (uses credits)
Pro
$29.99/mo
$26.99/mo billed annually
- 2,500 free Auto requests / month
- 3,500 monthly credits
- +30 bonus credits every day you log in
- Access to deep research
- Access to Work agent
- 1,500 Firecrawl credits
Where to go next
This page covers choosing and sequencing. These cover the rest.
- Deploying an agentAI agents for small businessesOnce you have picked a process, how an agent runs it day to day.
- Comparing toolsAI tools for small businessWhich kinds of tool fit which jobs, before you commit to one.
- Choosing a platformBusiness process automation toolsA vendor-selection checklist for rule-based and AI workflow tools.
- Designing the stepsAI workflow automationWhich steps need a model, which stay rules, and how to handle failure.
Questions before you automate
Which process should a small business automate first?
Pick the one that repeats at least weekly, follows a rule you can write down, draws on data that already sits in a system, and can be checked before it goes out. Invoice reminders and review requests usually pass most of those tests. If you invoice on terms, invoice reminders are worth more because the payoff is money collected earlier, not only minutes saved.
Do I need QuickBooks or Stripe connected to automate invoice reminders?
No. A CSV export of open invoices is enough to start, and it keeps the first version easy to check. The connectors page lists what can be connected, including Gmail, Stripe, Square, PayPal and Xero. Confirm your own accounting or shop tool is on that list before you plan around a live connection, and fall back to an export if it is not.
Can ZeroTwo send supplier purchase orders automatically?
This page does not describe it that way. A realistic setup flags items under your threshold and drafts a reorder note, and you send it. If you want an order to go out without a person, test that on a low-value supplier first and decide deliberately.
How do I stop a reminder going to a customer who already paid?
Add a paid check before the draft step that compares each invoice with your freshest payment source, and skip anything with a newer payment than the export. Then keep a person approving each batch until you have seen that check work on real data.
What does it cost to run an automation like this?
Plans include a monthly credit pool and free Auto requests. Plus is $14.99 per month and Pro is $29.99 per month, or $26.99 per month billed annually. Model, image, video and deep-research runs draw from the credit pool, so a heavier task uses more. How much a given reminder run uses has not been measured here, so record it during your dry run.
Do I need technical skills to set one up?
You describe the job in plain English, but the quality of the result depends on how precisely you state the rule, the fields and the exceptions. Writing the rule on paper first, as in the sequence above, is most of the work.
How is my business data handled?
This page makes no promise beyond what the policies say. Read the Privacy Policy and Terms before you connect financial or customer data, and start with an export that leaves out anything you do not need.
Read the Privacy Policy and Terms before connecting customer or financial data.