Picking one of the best business process automation tools is crucial for your business. We are living in a digital world, which means there are multiple solutions to make your business operations efficient. But, which tool is perfect for your organization? Which one can streamline your workflow and boost productivity by minimizing manual tasks?
Here, we have reviewed some top-notch business process automation applications. Check all the recommendations and try a suitable option for your business. But, let’s talk about some basics first.
What are Business Process Automation Tools?
The business process automation products streamline your work and automate multiple tasks. These tools use machine learning and artificial intelligence to enhance productivity, improve efficiency, and save time. You can deploy such programs in multiple departments of your organization, including finance, customer service, marketing, sales, and more.
The business automation programs can handle a wide range of jobs. Hence, such tools save a lot of your precious time, so that you can focus on other activities. Moreover, they improve collaboration and increase your consistency, which helps you to grow and makes your business successful.
Here are some business process automation examples
- Data entry and its processing
- Upload and approval of documents
- Onboarding and verification of customers
- Management of customer inquiries and support system
- Task assignments of projects and their tracking
- Lead capture
- Email campaigns
- Onboarding of employees and their performance reviews
How to Choose the Best Business Automation Tools?
- Workflow management: Zero coding business process automation tools are better compared to tools with complex interfaces. Plus, prefer products with customizable workflow templates and a single dashboard to track all the progress.
- Communication and collaboration: An automation product with the ability to assign tasks to your teammates is better for your business. Make sure you can also collaborate with your colleagues to complete the tasks.
- Analytics and reporting: Try one of the best business process automation tools with a centralized dashboard to show workflow performance. Also, it should show customizable reports to monitor and track different teams in your organization. In addition, make sure the application can provide real-time insights and export the data.
- Integration and automation: A business automation tool should integrate with a wide range of third-party applications. Moreover, it must have API support for custom integrations. Also, make sure the program can schedule and automate workflows.
- Security and compliance: Prefer a business automation solution with data protection and encryption features. Make sure it’s compliant with regulations and standards. Also, there should be audit trails to track the activity of the users.
Best Business Automation Tool to Increase Efficiency in 2023
1. OneHash
Best for: Small to medium businesses, enterprises, non-profit organizations, startups
If you are looking for one of the best business process automation tools that can empower various aspects of your business operations, try OneHash. It’s a suite of tools developed to streamline your workflow, boost customer engagement, and enhance your communication with them. This program comes with five modules, ERP, CRM, Mail, Chat, and Cal.
OneHash ERP helps you to set up and run your business within a few minutes. Plus, it helps you to manage everyday operations like HR, finances, inventory, and project tracking. This module also automates several tasks including payroll, purchases, quality reviews, and more. So, it increases the overall efficiency of your business.
OneHash CRM tools are incredible for sales management. Its lead capture and management features make the most of every opportunity. Furthermore, OneHash Mail is perfect for email marketing. It also gives you all the insight into your outreach strategies.
OneHash Chat centralizes all the interactions and helps you to automate live chat by deploying chatbot. It also facilitates team collaboration. OneHash Cal is about scheduling your meetings. It has one of the most user-friendly user interfaces, which is perfect for beginners.
As you can see, OneHash process automation modules enhance the productivity of your business and improve communication with your customers. Try it if you need a powerful all-in-one automation program.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Value for money
- Lots of useful features
- Top-notch customer support including chat and email
Cons
- Making changes to an item or element is time-taking
Pricing: OneHash has three plans. All the editions come with a trial period of 14 days.
- Starter: $48.47 per month
- Plus: $96.94 per month
- Pro: $196.92 per month
2. Zapier
Best for: Small to medium-sized businesses, enterprises, startups
Zapier is a simple automation program for small to medium-sized businesses. It’s one of the best business process automation tools if you want to save time and boost your productivity. It helps you to automate a lot of actions in your organization and increases efficiency.
Whether you want to save all the attachments from your Gmail to Google Drive or save your files from one cloud backup to another, Zapier does everything automatically. It even publishes all your posts to social media platforms within a few clicks.
Try Zapier if you want to automate the tasks related to your business and focus on jobs that need manual work. It comes with a free plan, which helps you to understand the basics of automation. So, you can try this application and upgrade to its premium plan if you like the features.
Pros
- Easy to set up and implement
- Multiple app integrations
- Constant updates and fixes
Cons
- The customer support service is not up to the mark
Pricing: Apart from the free plan, Zapier has four different editions
- Starter (750 tasks per month) – $19.99
- Professional (2K tasks per month) – $49
- Team (2K tasks per month) – $69
- Company (2k tasks per month) – $99
The prices increase if you increase the number of tasks.
3. BonitaSoft
Best for: Businesses of all sizes
Are you looking for an open-source business automation program? Try BonitaSoft because it has all the features to drive automation and digitalization in your organization. But, you need expertise in multiple languages to use it.
BonitaSoft is one of the most used business process automation products. It has customers in more than 75 countries. Over 150, 000 members enjoy the features of this application, including hundreds of big brands like Cisco and Vodafone.
Pros
- High availability and scalability
- Helps develop applications as per your business needs
- Powerful REST API
- Incredible UI designer
- Compatible with several database engines
Cons
- Significant knowledge and learning curve is required
- Complex debugging process
Pricing: BonitaSoft is available in two editions
- Community – Free to download and use
- Enterprise – Custom pricing available with the BonitaSoft sales team
4. Pipefy
Best for: Businesses of all sizes
Pipefy is one of the best business process automation tools to streamline your business operations and increase your productivity. It smoothens data and workflow in your IT, procurement, HR, and finance departments. Moreover, this application lets you make customized workflows and design processes as per your business requirements.
Pipefy helps you to automate a wide range of tasks, track progress, and collaborate with your teammates. You can create workflows without using any technical resources. Hence, you can make changes as your business grows.
This automation program facilitates real-time conversations and reduces the number of mail exchanges internally and externally. Apart from that, it has a user-friendly interface with a drag-and-drop function. So, you can easily create the workflows even if you are a beginner.
Pros
- Scalable according to your business needs
- Simple interface, easy to use
- A lot of useful features to boost your efficiency
Cons
- No demonstration for beginners
Pricing: Pipefy comes with a free plan and three premium editions.
- Business – $19 per user per month
- Enterprise – $32 per user per month
- Unlimited – Custom pricing available with the Pipefy sales team
5. Ontraport
Best for: Businesses of all sizes
Ontraport has excellent CRM tools and business process automation features that help you to automate your customer management, sales, and marketing. Moreover, it comes with several features to grow your business, and customer segmentation, including email marketing, lead management, and analytics. What’s more? This program has a drag-and-drop editor to create attractive signup forms, landing pages, and emails.
Ontraport gives you complete control over the automation process. So, you can automate customer segmentation, campaigns, and set variables. Moreover, it smoothly integrates with tracking tools, payment gateways, accounting apps, and webinar tools for your convenience.
Tracking performance and campaign analysis is easy with Ontraport. So, it helps make data-driven decisions. Apart from that, this application provides incredible customer support services.
Pros
- Powerful platform
- Excellent email scheduling features
- Top-notch customer support
Cons
- Email campaigns are challenging to execute sometimes
Pricing: Ontraport has four premium packs. The price changes as you increase the number of contacts and users.
- Basic – Starting at $24 per month
- Plus – Starting at $83 per month
- Pro – Starting at $124 per month
- Enterprise – $249 per month
6. Xero
Best for: Small and medium-sized businesses
You need more accounting as your business grows. However, it could be a problem if you do not have the proper resources. Xero is extremely useful in such scenarios. This application minimizes your accounting workload by automating invoices, payments, and more. So, cash flow management becomes easy with its help.
Xero is one of the few business process automation products with a smartphone application. So, you can track your business on the move. In addition, it has 24 by 7 online support for your assistance.
Pros
- Convenience of cloud
- User-friendly interface
- Real-time bank feeds
- Integration with third-party apps
- Affordable pricing
Cons
- Might take some for the new users to get accustomed to all the features of Xero
Pricing: Xero has a free trial period of 30 days and it has three premium plans.
- Starter – $25 per month
- Standard – $40 per month
- Premium – $54 per month
7. ActiveCampaign
Best for: Businesses of all sizes
ActiveCampaign is a marketing automation platform, which combines top-notch email marketing features and CRM tools. It’s optimized for businesses of all sizes. Also, this automation tool is reasonably priced.
By automating emails, you can communicate with your potential clients and get high-quality leads. With the help of personalized email marketing, you can grow your contact list size up to 143 percent. Moreover, ActiveCampaign has over 900 integrations in its marketplace including, Zapier, WordPress, and Shopify.
Pros
- Robust automation
- User-friendly interface
- A lot of integrations
- Innovative ML-based features
Cons
- Unable to stop spam contacts
Pricing: ActiveCampaign is available in four different categories and each one of them has different plans.
- Marketing (Email and marketing automation) – Starts from $49 per month for 3 users
- Sales (CRM and sales engagement) – Starts from $19 per user per month
- Bundles (Marketing Automation + Sales CRM) – Starts from $93 per month for 5 users
- Transactional Email (API + SMTP for Your Site or App) – $15 for 10,000 emails per month
8. Camunda
Best for: Small to large businesses
Established in 2008, Camunda is one of the most reputable business process automation tools. It builds automation solutions quickly, which you can scale as per the needs of your business. Moreover, this application helps you to collaborate with developers to automate processes.
Camunda has a huge community of developers, which is extremely helpful for your team. Whenever you need a technical reference, there are over 100, 000 thousand developers to help. It’s one of the reasons why hundreds of brands like Airbus, Deloitte, and Allianz use Camunda.
Pros
- Fluid user interface
- Simple editor navigation
- JAVA integration
- High availability and scalability
- Powerful REST API
Cons
- Requires consistent learning curve
Pricing: Camunda is available as SaaS and self-managed editions. Both of them have a free version.
- SaaS – Starts from €49/month
- Self-Managed – Custom pricing, available with the sales team of Camunda
9. Nanonets
Best for: Businesses of all sizes
Are you looking for an AI-based automation solution for your business? Try Nanonets, one of the best business process automation tools that use AI to automate your business tasks. It can automate a wide range of activities including data validation, data formatting, data entry, data import/export, and more. Moreover, this application has a no-code environment. Hence, you can try it even if you have zero coding knowledge or experience.
All types of businesses can enjoy the benefits offered by Nononets. Its artificial intelligence learns as your business grows. Therefore, you can expect higher accuracy each time new documents or transactions are processed. These are some of the reasons why big brands like Toyota, Hughes, and P&G prefer Nanonets for their day-to-day business automation.
Pros
- No code environment
- Powerful workflow builder
- Integrations with multiple business tools
Cons
- Expensive on-premise version
Pricing: Nanonets has three premium edition
- Starter, pay as you go plan – First 500 pages free, then $0.3/page
- Pro – 5000 pages, then $0.1/page – $499/month/model
- Enterprise – Contact the Nanonets sales team to get the price
10. Kissflow
Best for: Businesses of all sizes
Kissflow is a top-notch cloud-based business process management application, which helps you to design and optimize workflows. It’s one of the best business process automation products for beginners. This tool has a drag-and-drop interface. So, you can create and customize workflows as per your needs.
Apart from managing workflows, Kissflow helps you to set rules and assign tasks to your teammates or departments. Moreover, it automates a lot of tasks and reduces the chances of human errors. So, not only does this program streamline your business operations, but it also improves your efficiency.
Here comes the good news. Team collaboration is an easy task on Kissflow. It has a centralized document-sharing and communication dashboard. Hence, all your teammates can easily communicate with each other, attach files to their conversations, and leave comments. Such an arrangement improves the transparency inside your organization and reduces communication gaps.
Kissflow comes with a smartphone application. So, you can view and track tasks or collaborate with your colleagues even when you are on the move. What’s more? It comes with a built-in reporting and analytics function. Hence, monitoring the performance is also an easy task.
Pros
- Incredible workflow designing
- Interaction and feedback delivery are convenient
- Gives access to all your ticket history
Cons
- No function to access older POs
Pricing: Kissflow has two editions.
- Basic – Starts at $1500 per month
- Enterprise – Flexible custom pricing as per your needs
FAQs
What are the best business process automation tools?
OneHash is a top-notch application for business automation. Zapier, BonitaSoft, and Pipefy are other business process automation tools that you can consider as per your needs. Ontraport, Xero, and ActiveCampsign are also incredible programs that you can use if your business needs them.
How can business automation tools help your organization to grow?
The automation applications save a lot of your time for your business and improve its efficiency. They automate a wide range of tasks, which helps you to focus on activities that need more manual work. In other words, business automation tools help your organization by saving time and boosting productivity.
How does business automation increase productivity?
Automation increases the productivity and efficiency of your business in several ways. Let us talk about a few of them here.
- Reduces time on manual tasks: Repetitive tasks like email marketing, answering common questions, data entry, etc. consume a lot of time for your employees. Using ERP tools, CRM tools, and other automation techniques saves significant time for your employees, which allows them to focus on their key roles and responsibilities.
- Improves efficiency: Business process automation tools make positive impacts on the mindset of your staff and increase their job satisfaction. AI taking over their day-to-day tasks increases their morale and saves them from boredom. Happy and satisfied employees are always efficient.
- Minimizes human errors: Do you know what is the biggest reason for disruptions in a business? Its human error, which is generally caused by a lack of expertise, poor judgment, or fatigue. These mistakes might be unintentional, but they reduce the productivity of your business.
You can eliminate human errors by automating the processes with the help of business automation applications and ERP tools. Lack of knowledge, fatigue, and other conditions do not apply to software. So, the productivity and efficiency of your organization increase automatically.
- Smooth processing: Business process automation products streamline the workflow of your business, especially in logistics and inventory management. Business who has deployed automation in these departments enjoy high speed, accuracy, and smoothness in their operations.
Final Thoughts
Try one of the best business process automation tools as per your requirements and priorities. By reading the reviews of the options mentioned above, we hope you can make an intelligent decision for your organization.
Deploying automation is easy with OneHash. Its user-friendly interface is perfect for everyone, including beginners. It has some of the most powerful CRM tools and top-notch workflow management features. Moreover, this application is affordable. Other recommendations are also useful. But your selection should depend upon your business needs.
