Are you looking for ways to save your business money in 2023? The Power Platform offers a variety of tools that can help you streamline your operations and cut costs. In our latest YouTube video, “7 Ways to Save Your Business Money in 2023 with Power Platform“, we’ll show you how to use the Power Platform to improve your business’s efficiency and save money.
What is the Power Platform?
The Power Platform is included with Office 365, so if you already have Office 365, you already have access to the Power Platform. The platform includes Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI, which can be used to create custom apps, automate workflows, and create data visualizations. These low code/no code tools offer you unlimited possibilities for creating custom business apps without the expense of large-scale development projects.
Inspection and Reporting Apps with Power Apps
One effective way to reduce costs for your business is by creating a custom Power Apps Inspection and Reporting app. PowerApps can be used to streamline various types of inspections, such as vehicle inspections, product evaluations, and job checklists. By using PowerApps, you can eliminate the need for paper-based processes and expensive off-the-shelf software that may not fully meet your needs. PowerApps is user-friendly, low-code/no-code platform, making it accessible even if you have little to no coding experience. You can easily design an app that aligns with your specific business processes, rather than having to conform your processes to fit a pre-existing app.
Automate customer contacts and leads with Power Automate
Another way to save your business money is by using Power Automate for new customer intake and response. This can help you automate the process of responding to new customer inquiries and can save you time and money on labor costs. In the video, you will see an example Power Automate flow we use here at PowerApps911 for handling the thousands of contacts our website gets from people like you. It involves Cognito, SharePoint, Teams, MailChimp, and a whole lot of Cloud Flow automation.
Lots of options in the Human Resources space
Power Apps can also be used to create custom Human Resources apps with Power Apps. These apps can help you automate HR processes such as employee onboarding and can also help you manage employee data. This can save you time and money on labor costs, as well as help you ensure that you’re complying with HR regulations. Some examples discussed include Offboarding/Onboarding, Kudos, Time Off requests, Performance review/goal tracking, and a full demo of how we do Job Tracking for our small business.
Invoices: Add Artificial Intelligence to reduce human workloads
The Power Platform also includes AI Builder, which can be used to create custom AI models without writing code. One way to use AI Builder is for invoice scanning. By automating the invoice scanning process, you can save time and money on labor costs, and also reduce the risk of errors.
One example is doing double entry batching. Let the AI scan the invoice or receipt and extract the values. Then have a human do the same. If the human and AI got the same values, then move the invoice along. If there is a discrepancy, then start a manual reconciliation process. This will allow you to greatly reduce data entry errors without doubling the human workload.
What is AI Builder?
AI Builder is a feature within the Power Platform that allows users to create custom AI models without the need for specialized coding knowledge. It enables non-technical users to leverage pre-built templates and use their own data to train models that can perform tasks such as image recognition, text classification, and form processing. With AI Builder, businesses can automate tasks such as invoice scanning, sentiment analysis, and predictive maintenance, and integrate the AI models into their Power Apps and Power Automate workflows, to improve efficiency and save time and money.
Expense and Spending management
Power Apps can also be used to manage expenses and spending. You can create custom apps that help you track expenses, manage budgets, and even create custom reports. This can help you save money by identifying areas where you can cut costs. Every business has the need to track and report on spending. Let the Power Platform help you build solutions that fit your business exactly.
Inventory and Asset Management
In addition, the Power Platform can also be used for inventory and asset management. This can help you keep track of your inventory and assets and can also help you automate the process of ordering and tracking inventory. This can save you time and money on labor costs. Whether you track things today using Excel, Access, or just good ole pen and paper you can do better with the Power Apps and Automate. One of our construction customers replaced a six figure a year 3rd party tool with a custom Power App.
Our favorite customer example we built
Their app takes a user through the whole process. First you use a desktop Power App to create a Purchase Order. Adding vendors and products from an easy-to-use process. Once the PO is ready to go, they submit it via the app, it is then automatically turned into a PDF and sent directly to the vendor for fulfillment. When the products show up IT uses a mobile Power App to find, receive the order into inventory. The app uses the built in barcode scanner to scan serial numbers and asset tags. Now the items are in inventory they are assigned and distributed to the users. Nothing over the top. Just a simple app that is 100% tailored to their business process.
Timesheets or time tracking are easy wins
Finally, the Power Platform can be used to create custom timesheets, which can help you automate the process of tracking employee time. This can save you time and money on labor costs, and also help you ensure that you’re complying with labor regulations. One customer saw massive ROI with their timesheet app because not only did they track hours, but they used the app to track equipment used on the job, which was billable back to their client. Their custom timesheet app literally made them money.
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