What Automate covers
The work your team does by hand, taken off them one thing at a time
For more than a decade, ClearSummit has built production software for major corporations and startups. Automate is the option for work somebody on your team already does every week. Because it already exists, nobody has to decide what it should be — which is why it runs the way it does, and why it costs what it costs.
The line, in one sentence
If somebody at your company does this by hand today and could sit down and do it while we watch, that is Automate. If there is nothing to watch, because the thing does not exist yet, that is Build.
What that is really testing is whether the specification already exists. Automate copies one that is already in the world, carried around in a person's habit. Build authors one, and the deciding is why it costs more.
Automate · $4k / month · Somebody who can show us how the work is done today. You do not need a weekly decision-maker.
What Automate does
This is the list, not a sample of it. If what you need is not here, it is worth a conversation rather than an assumption — it usually means somebody has to decide what the thing should be first, and that is a different option.
Two systems kept in sync
an order that shows up in the other place without anyone re-keying it
The report that rebuilds itself
the Monday numbers you assemble from four tabs, waiting for you instead
The paperwork you type twice
anything keyed into one screen and then keyed into a second
An intake form that files itself
what a customer sends lands in the right place, named right, with the right person notified
The inbox that sorts itself
quotes, invoices and the rest routed to a person instead of to everyone
A quote that drafts itself
your pricing sheet, pre-filled from what the customer already told you
The document that gets generated
the certificate, packing list or work order you make by copying last month's and changing the names
The pile of PDFs someone reads and retypes
invoices and spec sheets that arrive as documents and end up as rows
The reminder nobody has time to send
the follow-up, the renewal notice, the chase that only happens when someone remembers
The daily download
the file you pull off a portal every morning and drop somewhere else
The list that gets checked against another list
invoices against payments, shipments against orders, hours against a schedule
The alert that should have gone off
the low stock, the late job, the expiring certificate you currently notice by accident
The number you look up to answer a question
the stock level or ship date somebody checks across three screens
The export that always needs the same six fixes
the data nobody can use until one person cleans it the way they always clean it
The status update nobody asked to write
the note you send customers because they call otherwise
The onboarding checklist
the same eleven steps for every new customer, employee or vendor, done from memory
The photo, the receipt, the signed form
things that arrive as attachments and get renamed, filed and attached to a record by hand
The spreadsheet with a hundred formulas and one owner
the workbook the business runs on that only one person can open safely
What it does not
Not because these are too big. Because each one needs somebody to decide what it is before it can be built.
A customer portal
somewhere your customers log in, which means deciding what each one may see and do
Two systems that both get to be right
either side can change the same fact, and somebody has to rule on which one wins
The inventory number, decided
not a view of what three systems say, but the answer everyone agrees to use
A quoting system with the rules inside it
the sheet replaced: who can discount, what needs approval, what the price actually is
A workflow with authority in it
who approves what, at what threshold, and what happens when that person is out
An app your field crews carry
assignments, photos and job status where the work happens. That is a product, and products get designed
A scheduling or dispatch tool
anything that decides what happens next, which is a rule nobody has written down
A pricing or margin model
a calculation the business will make decisions from, which has to be argued about before it can be built
A replacement for the spreadsheet the business runs on
not automating the workbook, but deciding what it should have been
A customer-facing action, not a view
letting a customer change something, rather than see it
Anything with a login for people outside your company
customers, vendors, partner firms: identity, permissions, and a support burden that arrives with them
A new place where something becomes true
the general case, and the one the other eleven are instances of
The same job, either side of the line
Read across. The difference is never the technology — it is whether anybody still has to decide.
- AutomateThe report that rebuilds itself
- BuildThe inventory number, decided
- AutomateAn order that shows up in the other place
- BuildTwo systems that both get to be right
- AutomateThe status update sent to customers
- BuildA portal customers log into and look
- AutomateA quote that drafts itself from your sheet
- BuildA quoting system that replaces the sheet
- AutomateThe alert that should have gone off
- BuildA dispatch tool that decides what happens next
- AutomateThe spreadsheet only one person can open
- BuildA replacement for the spreadsheet
Four questions that place your own situation
You can answer all four about your own business without talking to us. The fit check asks them in order and tells you the answer on the page.
1 · Does the specification already exist?
Is somebody doing this by hand right now, and could they sit with us and do it while we watch?
Automate Yes — there is a person and a habit to copy.
Otherwise No, it does not exist yet and we would be describing what we want. That is Build or Guided.
2 · Does it create a place customers go?
Would this put something new in front of your customers — somewhere they log in, or a page they use?
Automate No, it is for our own team. An email or document they receive does not count.
Otherwise Yes. Somewhere customers go and do something has to be designed, so that is Build.
3 · Who ends up holding the rule?
If two of your systems disagree, does everyone already know which one is right?
Automate Yes — obviously it is the one we all trust. Or there is only one system.
Otherwise We would have to work that out. Settling it means we hold the rule, and whoever holds the rule owns a system.
4 · Will it stay built? (durability, not shape)
Do you pay the place this information comes from?
Automate Yes — it is our own system, or software we subscribe to.
Otherwise No, it comes from somewhere we have no account. Then the first thing to check is whether the data can simply be licensed, because a supported feed you can rely on beats anything either of us would maintain.
Not sure which side yours falls on?
That is a normal place to be, and it is what the fit check is for. It asks these four questions plus a handful of others and gives you the answer before anyone asks who you are.
Check your fit