Almost every company in Moldova has the same three time leaks: data entered twice, orders transcribed from a chat, and a report assembled by hand every Monday.
Useful automation is not a new system that replaces everything. It is the removal of those three.
Where the time actually goes
Re-keying data. The order arrives on the site, gets written into Excel, then into 1C, then into the deliveries file. The same information, four places, three chances to get it wrong.
Orders over WhatsApp. They work perfectly up to a certain volume, then become the most expensive process in the company: someone reads messages and transcribes product codes all day.
Manual reports. Someone opens three files every Monday and combines them. It takes two hours, happens 50 times a year, and the result is wrong every time one file's structure changes.
Documents sent by email. Invoices, delivery notes, orders. Lost, searched for, requested again.
What actually gets automated here
The link between the shop and 1C. Orders land in stock without transcription; stock reaches the site without manual updating. It is the most common automation project in Moldova and has an article of its own.
Invoicing. Generated from the order, sent automatically, archived. No document typed a second time.
Reports. The same figures, generated on their own, at the same hour, in the same format. What took two hours becomes an email that arrives.
Orders from B2B clients. A simple portal instead of messages: the client orders, the order lands in the system, nobody transcribes anything.
Notifications. Stock below threshold, unpaid order, missing document. The system says so, rather than somebody finding out three days later.
How it starts
Not with software. With a list of the things done twice, and the question of how many hours a month each consumes. That list shows what is worth automating and what is not — because some processes are too rare to justify the work.
Then we build only what pays for itself, in the order in which it pays.
Questions
How do I know what is worth automating?
By time. A process consuming ten hours a month that can be automated in two days pays back in three months. One consuming an hour a month, almost never.
Do I have to change my accounting package?
Usually not. Automation is built around what you have, rather than by replacing what works. Replacement is a separate and far more expensive decision.
How long does an automation project take?
It depends on how many systems have to talk to each other. A shop-to-1C link is one thing; a full flow of order, invoice, delivery and reporting is another.
What happens if the supplier disappears?
The systems we build run on standard technologies and the code is yours. What that means point by point is here.