Hunger Mountain Intelligence

What I Automate

Common tasks I help small businesses automate

These are the kinds of projects I work on most often. If any of them are close to something you're dealing with, I'd be happy to talk through whether automation makes sense for your situation.

Data & Reporting

Recurring reports and data tasks

A lot of small businesses have recurring work that involves pulling numbers from one system, formatting them, and sending them somewhere else. That's time that could go to serving customers, growing the business, or the strategic work only you can do. Here are a few examples of what automation looks like in practice.

The Monday Morning Report

What you're doing now

Every Monday, you open QuickBooks, pull the weekly numbers, paste them into a Google Sheet, format the totals, and email the sheet to your business partner and your accountant. Takes about 45 minutes.

What I build

The report builds itself overnight on Sunday and arrives in everyone's inbox Monday morning, formatted and ready. You start the week focused on customers and growth instead of on a spreadsheet.

Time saved: ~3 hours/monthPricing: Simple ($3,500–$5,000)

Keeping Two Systems in Sync

What you're doing now

You have customer information in your CRM and in your invoicing tool. When something changes in one, someone has to manually update the other. Sometimes it gets missed, and you find out when a customer gets the wrong invoice.

What I build

The two systems stay in sync automatically. When a record changes in one place, the other updates within minutes. No more manual updates, no more worrying about mismatches.

Time saved: Varies, but eliminates the errors and the time spent fixing themPricing: Simple to Medium ($3,500–$7,000)

End-of-Month Financials

What you're doing now

At the end of every month, your bookkeeper spends a full day pulling data from three different sources, reconciling it, and building a summary for your management team.

What I build

The data gets pulled and reconciled automatically. Your bookkeeper reviews the summary instead of building it from scratch — turning a full day into an hour or two. That's time they can put toward work that moves the business forward.

Time saved: 6–8 hours/monthPricing: Medium ($6,000–$9,000)

Customer Communication

Follow-ups and customer outreach

When follow-ups depend on someone remembering to send them, things can get missed — especially during busy stretches. Automating this kind of communication means your team can focus on the conversations that need a real person, while the routine ones happen on their own.

The Follow-up That Doesn't Happen

What you're doing now

Someone fills out your website contact form. The form sends you an email notification. You mean to reply within the hour, but it's a busy day and you get to it later in the week.

What I build

An automated response goes out within a few minutes, thanking them and letting them know you'll be in touch. A task gets created in your system so the inquiry doesn't get lost. If nobody's responded within 24 hours, you get a reminder. You can spend your time on the actual conversation when you're ready, knowing the lead was taken care of in the meantime.

Time saved: Minimal — this is really about making sure inquiries don't slip throughPricing: Simple ($3,500–$5,000)

Post-Service Review Requests

What you're doing now

You'd like to ask happy customers to leave a Google review, but it's hard to do consistently when you're busy with everything else.

What I build

A few days after a job is marked complete, the customer gets a friendly email asking for a review, with a direct link to your Google listing. It happens on its own, and reviews start accumulating steadily — without taking any time away from your actual work.

Time saved: 15–20 minutes/week, but the real value is the reviews themselvesPricing: Simple ($3,500–$5,000)

Personalized Outreach at Scale

What you're doing now

You want to let past customers know about a new service. Writing individual emails takes too long, and a generic blast doesn't feel right.

What I build

The system pulls each customer's name and history and generates a personalized email that references what they bought and when. Sent in manageable batches. You approve a sample before anything goes out. What might otherwise take a full day gets done in about 20 minutes — leaving the rest of that day for whatever's most important.

Time saved: A day's work done in 20 minutesPricing: Medium ($6,000–$7,500)

Document Processing

Automating data entry from documents

When part of someone's day involves opening documents, reading them, and typing the information into another system, that work can often be handled automatically — faster and with fewer errors. That's time your team gets back for the work that grows the business and actually needs their judgment.

Invoice Processing

What you're doing now

Vendor invoices come in by email. Someone opens each PDF, reads the line items, and types the amounts into your accounting system. At 20 invoices a week, that adds up to a couple hours of data entry.

What I build

AI reads each invoice, pulls out the vendor name, amounts, dates, and line items, and enters them into your system automatically. Anything that looks unusual gets flagged for a person to review. Your team spends a few minutes reviewing instead of a few hours typing.

Time saved: ~7 hours/monthPricing: Medium ($6,000–$8,000)

Application or Form Processing

What you're doing now

You receive applications, intake forms, or questionnaires by email, web form, or sometimes even paper. Someone reads each one and manually enters the information into your system.

What I build

The relevant information gets extracted automatically and entered into your database or CRM. Works with PDFs, emails, and web forms. Your team can focus on actually responding to the applications instead of just entering them.

Time saved: Typically 5–15 hours/month depending on volumePricing: Medium to Custom ($6,000–$10,000)

Internal Operations

Routing, tracking, and coordination

In many small businesses, someone ends up spending a good part of their day reading incoming requests, deciding who should handle each one, forwarding them along, and checking on status. Automating that routing and tracking work means more of your day is available for the work that requires your expertise and actually grows the business.

Maintenance Request Routing

What you're doing now

You manage properties. Tenant requests come in by email, text, and phone. You read each one, figure out whether it's plumbing, electrical, or a lockout, assign it to the right vendor, and try to follow up to make sure it got handled.

What I build

All requests come into one place. The system reads each request, categorizes it, assigns it to the right vendor based on your rules, lets the tenant know it's been received, and tracks completion. You get a daily summary instead of managing each one individually — and your tenants get faster responses.

Time saved: 5–10 hours/week for a property manager with 50+ unitsPricing: Medium to Custom ($7,000–$10,000)

Inventory Alerts

What you're doing now

Someone checks stock levels by hand — maybe in a spreadsheet, maybe by looking at the shelf. When something's running low, they let you know. Sometimes it gets missed.

What I build

A system monitors your inventory data (from your POS, spreadsheet, or warehouse tool) and sends an alert when anything drops below the level you set. It can also draft a reorder email to your supplier. One less thing to keep track of in your head.

Time saved: Modest, but helps avoid the cost and disruption of running out of stockPricing: Simple to Medium ($3,500–$7,000)

See an opportunity to free up time for growth?

An AI Action Plan (Automation Assessment) is a good way to get started. We walk through your workflows together and I put together a report with your best opportunities and fixed prices for each one.