Software built, run and supported for you.
Automation Bureau

IT Automation Specialists

Saving businesses time. Saving businesses money. Less operational waste, less outsourcing.

We take the repetitive, manual work off your team, and we build the platforms that run the work itself - for shops, staffing and events, property, hotels, clinics and trades. Every change costed first, supported after. Two of them are open to walk into right now.

Free, no account. Eighteen one-tap questions and you get a costed savings report as a PDF.

8 platforms built in-house 10+ years engineering at global scale 24/7 support once it's live

Live today · walk straight in

StockTill - the stock and till dashboard StockTillStock, till & reorders for shops Open the demo Rotamate - an event being staffed RotamateStaff rotas, filled over WhatsApp Walk in as the manager

In practice

What that can mean

Tap one for a figure from our worked example.

What you get

Six things you can ask us for

Tap one to see exactly what is handed over.

Process automation The repetitive work your team does by hand, done by the system instead.

We sit with the job as it is actually done - the spreadsheet, the inbox, the re-typing - cost it, then automate the half that is rules rather than judgement. The rest stays with your people, where it belongs.

  • A costed map of where the hours go before anything is built
  • The automations themselves, readable and editable in plain English
  • Your team trained on them, and a written record of every automatic decision

How it starts: The two-minute check, or a conversation.

Systems integration Make the software you already pay for talk to itself.

Most offices hold the same information in three places and keep them in step by hand. We connect them through their own APIs so a change in one is a change everywhere - and when a system has no API, we work out what it does have.

  • A two-way connection, with the field mapping written down and editable
  • A queue you can see, so a failed sync is visible instead of silent
  • Nothing entered twice, and no export-import ritual on a Friday

How it starts: Tell us the systems; we will say what is possible before quoting.

Industry platforms Five whole-industry systems we built, ready to set up for your business.

Lettings and sales agencies, hotels and accommodation, clinics and pharmacies, trades and field service, convenience retail. Each is ours, built on one shared engine, and each is demonstrated live before anything is agreed.

  • A live demo against one of your own journeys, not a slide deck
  • A pilot set up with your data, your branding and your integrations
  • The platform run with you, not handed over and forgotten

How it starts: Ask for a demo of the one that fits.

See all five
Search visibility & SEO Be the business that gets found - by search engines, by maps, and now by AI assistants.

Every site we build ships with the technical groundwork already done, and we do the same work on sites we did not build. Not keyword stuffing: the structure, speed and plain answers that let a search engine - or ChatGPT - understand what you do and recommend you for it.

  • Technical SEO: structured data, sitemaps, canonical URLs, titles and descriptions per page
  • Local search: Google Business Profile, opening hours, directions and reviews wired up
  • Speed and Core Web Vitals, because a slow page is ranked as a worse page
  • Answer pages for the questions customers actually type, and an llms.txt so AI assistants read you correctly

How it starts: Send us your address and we will tell you what is wrong with it, free.

Cost optimisation Saving time and money - less outsourcing cost, less operational waste.

We work out what the current way of working actually costs - hours, outsourcing, software that overlaps - then take it out: automate the repeatable part, bring routine work back in-house, and consolidate systems where fewer would do. Every change is priced on its own with its payback, so you maximise the return with complete transparency.

  • A costed map of where the time and money go - hours, outsourcing, software
  • Each change priced with its own payback, fastest return first
  • Systems consolidated where fewer would do - and left alone where not

How it starts: The two-minute check, or a conversation.

Support & hosting Once it is live, it is still ours to keep running.

Automation that nobody maintains becomes a liability the first time a supplier changes an API. We host, monitor and keep ours working, and we answer the phone.

  • Hosting, backups and monitoring, with alerts reaching us before they reach you
  • 24/7 support once a system is live
  • Changes made as the business changes - the automations are meant to be edited

How it starts: Included in every build we run.

Solutions

Platforms we have built for whole industries

All solutions

Who you are working with

Engineering experience behind the business

Automation Bureau is built on more than a decade of professional experience across software, infrastructure, cloud engineering and operational technology.

That experience was built inside large-scale technology environments - five years at DPDgroup in software and systems engineering, then five years in Site Reliability Engineering, cloud and infrastructure at global scale - and behind it, a first-class degree in Computer Science.

In plain terms: what we build is made to keep working. It is watched, it tells you when it needs a person, and it is supported after it goes live.

A system that works during a demonstration is very different from a system a business can depend on every day.

Performance and cost dashboards on a laptop screen
Time and money, measured - every saving visible on a dashboard
First-class degree in Computer Science
DPDgroup - software and systems engineering
Site Reliability Engineering, at global scale
Automation & cost optimisation
Migrations and deployments
Monitoring, alerting & auto-remediation

How we work

Three steps, and a number before any proposal

  1. 1 CheckTwo minutes of one-tap questions, or we look at how the work actually moves. Either way you get a costed figure first.
  2. 2 Costed planEach change priced on its own with its payback, fastest first - and we say which parts are not worth doing.
  3. 3 Build and supportThe first change is small and live in days. It sits between the systems you already have, and we support it round the clock.
The detail, if you want it What we look at, what we bring back in-house, and what happens after it goes live.

What we look at before proposing anything

  • → Where information comes from, and where it needs to go
  • → Which systems are involved, and where people have to step in
  • → Where delays and mistakes happen
  • → What is outsourced, and what it costs
  • → What software and services are being paid for
  • → Where skilled people spend time that does not use their skill
  • → What should be automated, joined up, simplified - or left alone

Work that no longer needs to be outside

Outsourcing earns its place for specialist skills or extra capacity. Routine work is often outsourced only because there was never a practical alternative. Where that has changed we bring it back: lower recurring cost, faster turnaround, less dependency. If outsourcing remains the better option, we will say so.

Consistent, not just faster

Manual work brings mistakes as well as cost: a figure copied wrongly, a task forgotten, a report built from last month's file. Automation does repeatable work the same way every time, checks its own results, and hands over to a person where judgement is needed.

We work with what you already have

Improving a business rarely means replacing its systems. Usually it means joining them up, removing manual steps and retiring tools that overlap. Where a replacement would genuinely help, we design and support that too.

Built to be supported

Software changes, volumes grow, processes evolve. For the systems we deliver, IT support is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with monitoring and response built around how important the service is and uptime commitments defined in the agreed support SLA.

Free · a few taps · no account

Find out what your business could save

Pick your kind of business and what would save you the most. If one of our live products already does it, you can open it and try it straight away. If not, we plan a free demo around you - and you only pay when you choose to go live.

Prefer a costed PDF report? Take the two-minute check → · See a worked example of the report →

Start the free consultation

Questions

The things people ask first

What does Automation Bureau do?

We are IT automation specialists. We find the work in a business that is typed twice, waits on somebody, or is paid to an outside firm to do by hand, and we build and support the automation that removes it - every change costed, with a payback you can check.

What kind of work can be automated?

The repeatable part of almost any process. Invoices and orders keyed in from PDFs or email, the same report rebuilt every week, data copied between two systems that do not talk, approvals chased by email before anything can move, spreadsheets reconciled line by line, and paperwork that waits in somebody's inbox. If a person follows the same steps each time, those steps can usually be done for them.

What does it cost, and how long before it pays for itself?

Every change is costed on its own, with what it gives back and how long until it has paid for itself, and the plan is ordered by payback so the fastest return comes first. We say plainly which parts are not worth automating, because a consultancy that recommends everything is selling hours.

How long before we see something working?

The first change is deliberately a small one: the piece that can be built in days rather than a programme of work, and the one with the fastest payback. You see something running early and judge the rest of the plan on it, instead of waiting months to find out whether any of it was right.

Do we have to replace the systems we already use?

Usually not. Most of what we build sits between the systems you already have and moves the work between them, so nobody has to learn a new tool or migrate anything. Where a tool is genuinely costing more than it returns we will say so, but replacing it is a decision, not a prerequisite.

Do we need someone technical on our side?

No. What we need is somebody who knows how the work actually moves - usually the person doing it, not the person who manages them. Most of what we build sits between the systems you already have, so nobody has to learn a new tool or change how they work.

What happens after it goes live?

We support it round the clock. It tells you when it has run and when it needs a person, so nobody has to remember to check on it, and if something changes at your end - a supplier changes their invoice layout, a system gets updated - we fix it.

What size of business is this for?

The shape of the process matters more than the headcount. If a few people repeat the same steps every week, there is usually something worth automating, and if they do not there probably is not. The savings check is the quickest way to find out: it works out what your own manual work costs before anybody talks about a project.

Can you work alongside our existing IT team or supplier?

Yes, and we would rather they knew what we had built than found out later. We are usually adding something between systems rather than replacing what somebody already supports, so the people who look after those systems need to know it is there and what it does.

What happens when something changes at our end?

It will. A supplier changes an invoice layout, a system gets updated, a process moves. That is the normal life of an automation rather than a fault, and it is covered: it tells you when it has run and when it needs a person, and when something changes we fix it.

What does the automation savings check cost?

Nothing. It is eighteen one-tap questions, about two minutes, and no account. You get a savings report as a PDF: what manual work and outsourcing cost you now, what automating the repeatable part of it would save, and where to start.

Do you do SEO as well?

Yes - it is one of the six things we are asked for. Every site we build ships with the technical groundwork already done, and we do the same work on sites we did not build: structured data so a search engine understands what each page is, a sitemap and canonical addresses so it indexes one page rather than five copies, a title and description written per page, Google Business Profile and opening hours wired up for local search, and the speed work that Core Web Vitals is scored on. It is not keyword stuffing, and we do not promise a position - nobody honestly can.

Can you help us get found by ChatGPT and AI search?

It is the same work as being found by Google, done for a reader that quotes rather than links. An assistant can only recommend a business whose pages state plainly what it does, where, and for whom - so the answer pages that help a customer are the ones an assistant quotes. We also publish an llms.txt, which tells an AI reader which pages describe the business and how to describe it, and we keep it in step with the site rather than writing it once.

Where do you work?

Across the United Kingdom. The work is done remotely, with visits where a project needs them.

What if it turns out not to be worth automating?

Then we say so, before it is built rather than after. Every change is costed on its own with its own payback, so one that does not earn its cost is visible at the plan stage. We would rather tell you three things are worth doing than pretend seven are.

Not sure where the waste is?

Start with the free consultation, or just talk to us - whichever suits.