Workflow Automation for Traverse City Businesses

The problem

An order comes in by email and someone types it into the order system. Then they type it again into the invoicing software. At the end of the week, someone else copies numbers out of both into a spreadsheet so the owner can see how things are going. None of it is hard. All of it takes hours, and every retype is another chance to get a date, a quantity, or a price wrong.

The problem usually isn’t a lack of software. It’s software that doesn’t share information.

What I do

I start by looking at how the work actually moves. Where does an order, a job, or a customer record enter the business, and how many times does a person touch it before it’s done? That’s usually where the hours are.

Then I connect the systems you already use so the information moves on its own:

• Orders from a website, a form, or an email land in the system your team already works in, with the details intact.
• Invoices and payments flow to your accounting software instead of being entered twice.
• Catalogs and inventory stay in step between the back office and the storefront, with one place to make changes.
• Reports build themselves on a schedule instead of on a Friday afternoon.
• Alerts reach the right person when something genuinely needs a human — a failed payment, a low stock item, an order that doesn’t fit the pattern.

I use automation platforms like Make where they fit, and write custom code where they don’t. Either way, the goal is a system that keeps working.

I build for the days when something goes wrong. Problems are reported right away, paid orders are never lost, and nothing deletes your data. Every system comes with plain-language instructions so your staff can handle common issues themselves.

A bakery in Suttons Bay wanted online ordering without keeping a second catalog alive forever. So the catalog runs one direction — products, prices, and photos flow from the system their wholesale side already used out to the website — and orders run the other. When staff change a price, they change it once, where they already work, and the website follows.

Who it’s for

Businesses from a handful of people to a few dozen, where the same information gets entered in more than one place:

• Bakeries, restaurants, and caterers juggling wholesale, retail, and pre-orders
• Wineries and breweries keeping the tasting room, club, and online sales in step
• Manufacturers and shops moving work from quote to production to invoice
• Contractors and trades getting jobs from estimate to schedule to billing
• Medical and dental offices buried in intake and scheduling paperwork
• Nonprofits tracking donors, volunteers, and events across too many spreadsheets

If someone on your team spends part of every day copying information from one screen into another, this is where to start.

What it costs

Connecting two systems starts at $1,200. Most projects — several systems, real data to untangle, error handling that holds up — land between $3,000 and $7,000.

Bigger jobs start with a paid discovery so the quote reflects what's actually there instead of what fit in a first conversation.

Everything is quoted as a fixed price before work starts. No hourly meter.