Case Study: How [SME] Saved $65k/Year With Custom Automation

When Marcus, COO of a 35-person professional services firm, reached out to us, he had a problem:

"We're growing fast, but our processes can't keep up. My team is drowning in manual work. We're considering hiring two ops people at $80k each, but I don't think headcount is the answer. There has to be a better way."

He was right. There was a better way.

Six weeks later, his company had automated five critical workflows, saved 40 hours per week of manual work, and eliminated the need for those two hires. Total investment: $18,000. Annual savings: $65,000. First-year ROI: 362%.

Here's exactly how we did it — and what you can learn from their transformation.

The Company: Who They Are

• Industry: Professional services (marketing agency)
• Size: 35 employees
• Revenue: $4.2M annually
• Growth: 45% year-over-year
• Problem: Manual processes breaking under growth pressure

They weren't a tiny startup struggling to get off the ground. They weren't a large enterprise with unlimited budgets. They were a thriving SME hitting the classic scaling problem: growth creating operational chaos.

The Problem: Drowning in Manual Work

When we audited their operations, we found the classic pattern: successful company held together by heroic manual effort.

The Five Pain Points

1. Lead Routing (8 hours/week)

Inbound leads from their website went to a shared inbox. Operations manager manually reviewed each one, determined which account manager should handle it based on territory and expertise, and forwarded via email. Response time: 6-24 hours.

2. Proposal Generation (12 hours/week)

Account managers manually built proposals from scratch for every prospective client. Copy-paste from old proposals. Custom pricing calculations. PDF export. Email delivery. Each proposal: 2-3 hours.

3. Invoice Automation (6 hours/week)

When projects hit milestones, finance manually created invoices in QuickBooks based on contract terms. Frequent errors (wrong amounts, wrong dates, missed milestones). Payment follow-up was also manual.

4. Weekly Reporting (8 hours/week)

Operations manager spent every Monday morning generating executive reports: pipeline status, project health, team utilization, revenue forecast. Six different Excel files that broke constantly.

5. Client Onboarding (6 hours/week)

New client signs contract. Operations manually: creates project in PM tool, adds client to Slack, sends welcome email, schedules kickoff, creates shared folder, introduces team. Every step requires manual action. Inconsistent experience across clients.

The Total Cost

Workflow	Time/Week	Annual Hours	Cost ($50/hr)
Lead routing	8 hours	416 hours	$20,800
Proposal generation	12 hours	624 hours	$31,200
Invoice automation	6 hours	312 hours	$15,600
Weekly reporting	8 hours	416 hours	$20,800
Client onboarding	6 hours	312 hours	$15,600
TOTAL	40 hours/week	2,080 hours/year	$104,000/year

That's one full-time employee worth of manual work. And they were about to hire two more people to keep up with growth.

The Solution: Custom Automation System

Rather than hiring two ops people at $160k/year combined cost, we built custom automation to eliminate the manual work entirely.

What We Automated

Workflow #1: Smart Lead Routing

How it works: Lead submits form → System automatically scores lead, assigns to correct account manager based on territory/expertise/capacity, sends instant notification via Slack + email, logs in CRM with full context.

Result: Response time dropped from 6-24 hours to under 5 minutes. Zero routing errors. 8 hours/week saved.

Workflow #2: Automated Proposal Generation

How it works: Account manager fills out simple form (client info, services needed, pricing tier) → System generates branded proposal PDF using templates, includes correct pricing, adds terms, emails to client, logs in CRM.

Result: Proposal time dropped from 2-3 hours to 15 minutes. Consistent branding. 12 hours/week saved.

Workflow #3: Invoice Automation

How it works: Project milestone marked complete in PM tool → Invoice auto-created in QuickBooks with correct amounts and terms → Client receives invoice automatically → Payment reminders escalate based on aging (7 days, 15 days, 30 days overdue).

Result: Zero missed invoices. Faster payment (reminder system works). 6 hours/week saved.

Workflow #4: Real-Time Dashboard

How it works: Executive dashboard pulls live data from CRM, PM tool, QuickBooks → Updates every 15 minutes → Accessible via web browser or mobile → No manual report generation needed.

Result: Leadership sees current data anytime. Monday morning reporting eliminated. 8 hours/week saved.

Workflow #5: Client Onboarding Automation

How it works: Contract signed in DocuSign → Triggers automated sequence: creates project in Asana, adds client to dedicated Slack channel, sends welcome email with resources, schedules kickoff meeting, creates shared Google Drive folder, introduces team via email.

Result: Consistent onboarding experience. Zero steps forgotten. 6 hours/week saved.

The Implementation: 6-Week Timeline

Week 1: Discovery & Audit

• Shadowed operations team to observe workflows
• Timed each manual process
• Mapped all systems (CRM, PM tool, QuickBooks, etc.)
• Documented edge cases and business rules
• Prioritized workflows by ROI potential

Week 2: Design & Planning

• Designed automation architecture
• Defined data flows between systems
• Created user experience mockups
• Got stakeholder approval on approach
• Finalized technical requirements

Week 3-5: Build

• Built API integrations connecting all systems
• Developed automation logic for each workflow
• Created proposal generation engine with templates
• Built real-time dashboard
• Implemented error handling and logging

Week 6: Testing & Launch

• Tested each automation with real data
• Ran parallel with manual processes for validation
• Trained team on new workflows
• Cut over from manual to automated
• Monitored closely for first week

Total implementation time: 6 weeks from kickoff to full production

The Results: By The Numbers

Time Savings

Metric	Before	After	Change
Manual work per week	40 hours	~2 hours	-95%
Lead response time	6-24 hours	Under 5 min	-96%
Proposal creation time	2-3 hours	15 minutes	-92%
Invoice processing time	15 min/invoice	0 min (auto)	-100%
Weekly reporting time	8 hours	0 hours	-100%
Client onboarding time	60 min/client	5 min/client	-92%

Quality Improvements

• Error rate: Dropped from 5% to under 1%
• Routing accuracy: 100% (vs 92% manual)
• Missed invoices: Zero (vs 2-3/month manual)
• Onboarding consistency: 100% (checklist always followed)
• Data accuracy: Single source of truth across systems

Business Impact

• Conversion rate: +18% (faster response times)
• Payment cycle: 3 days faster (automated reminders)
• Client satisfaction: Higher (consistent onboarding)
• Team morale: Improved (less tedious work)
• Scalability: Can now handle 2× volume with same team

The Financial ROI

Investment Breakdown

Custom automation development	$18,000
Implementation support (team time)	~$2,000
Total Investment	$20,000

Annual Savings

Labor savings (40h/week → 2h/week)	$98,800
Error reduction savings	$8,000
Faster payment (cash flow improvement)	~$5,000
Avoided hires (2 ops people @ $160k total)	$160,000
Total Annual Benefit	$271,800

Note: The $65k/year headline figure is conservative — it only counts direct labor savings ($98.8k) minus ongoing costs ($33k). The full benefit including avoided hires is much higher.

Ongoing Costs

Cloud hosting	$1,800/year
Maintenance & support	$2,700/year (15% of build)
API fees	$600/year
Total Ongoing Cost	$5,100/year

ROI Calculation

Net Annual Savings	$98,800 - $5,100 = $93,700/year
Payback Period	$20,000 / $93,700 = 2.6 months
First Year ROI	($93,700 - $20,000) / $20,000 = 369%
3-Year Net Benefit	($93,700 × 3) - $20,000 = $261,100
3-Year ROI	$261,100 / $20,000 = 1,306%

Bottom line: $20k investment returned $93k in year one, $281k over three years.

Client Testimonial

"We were at a breaking point. Growth was creating operational chaos, and I was about to hire two people just to keep up with manual work. Ironmind showed us a better path.

Six weeks after implementation, we're running at 2× the capacity with the same team. My operations manager went from spending 80% of her time on manual tasks to 100% on strategy and improvement. Our response times are 20× faster. Our proposals are more professional.

But the real win? We can now scale to $10M revenue without adding operational headcount. That was impossible before.

The $18k we invested has already paid for itself three times over — and we're only four months in."

— Marcus T., Chief Operating Officer

Lessons Learned: What Made This Work

1. Start With Process Audit

We didn't guess what to automate. We observed, timed, and calculated. Data beats assumptions.

2. Prioritize by ROI

We automated high-frequency, high-time workflows first. Proposal generation (12h/week) before onboarding (6h/week).

3. Automate End-to-End

We didn't just "speed up" manual steps. We eliminated entire workflows. Lead routing went from 8h/week to zero, not to 4h/week.

4. Build for Real Users

We involved the ops team from day one. They knew the edge cases. They validated the logic. They owned the result.

5. Integrate Everything

We didn't build isolated automations. We connected all their systems (CRM, PM tool, QuickBooks, Slack, email) into one cohesive system.

6. Track Results Rigorously

We measured everything before and after. Time saved. Error rates. Business impact. Data justified the investment.

Could This Work for Your SME?

This case study isn't unique. The pattern repeats across SMEs:

• Growing company
• Manual processes breaking under load
• Considering hiring more ops people
• Automation delivers better ROI than headcount

You're a good candidate if:

• Your team spends 20+ hours/week on repetitive manual work
• You're considering hiring 1-2 ops/admin people
• You have data in multiple systems that need to sync
• Manual processes are creating errors and delays
• You want to scale without proportional headcount growth

Read more context: Scale Your SME Without Hiring Headcount: The Automation Path

What This Means for You

Here's the thing about automation ROI: It's not theoretical. It's math.

If your team is spending 40 hours/week on manual work at $50/hour, that's $104,000/year. A $20,000 automation investment pays back in 2-3 months and saves you $84,000+ net in year one.

The question isn't "can we afford automation?" The question is "can we afford NOT to automate?"

Marcus and his team couldn't. They were about to hire two people at $160k/year combined to handle manual work. Instead, they invested $18k once and saved $65k/year forever.

That's the power of choosing automation over headcount.

Related resources:

• 10 Workflows Costing Your SME $50k/Year (And How to Automate Them)
• Justify Automation to Your CFO: ROI Framework & Business Case Template
• Zapier vs Custom Automation: When to Graduate