I've had the chance to work at big (over 500 people) and small companies (7 people total), and—there's no debating it—communication between tools and people is more challenging at larger companies. In my experience, as companies grow, it's harder to keep everyone informed, update data between tools, and ensure top-notch security across departments. 

But clear communication doesn't have to be impossible at bigger companies. With Zaps—our automated workflows—you can automate the recurring and administrative tasks that bog down a company as it grows. Here are the top workflows you can automate between your departments to streamline work.

Table of contents

• Between sales and accounting

• Between sales and marketing

• Between IT and everyone else

Connect sales and accounting

Keeping your sales and accounting teams in sync allows for a smoother buying experience for your customers. It means payments run smoothly, without any delay. But ensuring both departments are aware of customer or payment status requires continuous data updates. And, as a company scales, it can be impossible to keep up with all of those changes manually. 

Update customer info instantly

With automation, you can keep data updated across your favorite tools instantly. For example, you can update customer profiles in your CRM as soon as you make a sale. That way, both are in the loop on customer status—without copying and pasting info across tools. 

Now, rather than accidentally approaching leads that are already customers, the sales team reaches out to prospects at the right time. Plus, the accounting team can verify payment status instantly, ensuring their bookkeeping is up to date. 

Streamline the sales to payment handoff

The sales team just made a sale. Hooray! Now, it's time to send that invoice to accounting. But a manual handoff can be time-consuming, delaying the payment process and creating a bad customer experience (maybe even causing you to lose that sale). Use Zapier to automatically send invoices to the right place—ensuring a quick turnaround on payments. 

Depending on your business model, signed contracts can also be a catalyst for payment. Send automatic notifications for signed contracts to the right team, making it easy to immediately take the necessary next steps. 

Connect marketing and sales

When the team bringing in new leads and the one turning those leads into customers are on the same page, sales increase. But when a ton of new prospects are coming in, it can be hard to make sure they're at the right spot in your lead funnel. 

With automation, you can streamline customer communication—ensuring that prospects are being cultivated by the right team, whether that's marketing, sales, or both.

Instantly update lead data in the right app

Use Zapier to automatically send new leads to the right tool, then update the status of those leads as they progress down your lead funnel. That way, the marketing team passes off high-quality leads to sales, and everyone has visibility into lead stages. This ensures leads get the right outreach at the right time in their lead lifecycle.

Notify the sales team about new leads

You can also set up automatic notifications about new leads. This means the marketing team doesn't need to reach out manually to sales, taking up time and slowing down the process. Instead, the sales team can reach out to new leads as soon as they respond to marketing content—creating a smooth, comprehensive customer experience. 

Connect IT and everyone else

Your IT department is your center for all things tech. They make sure all your tools, teams, and systems work together smoothly—which can be a lot for one team to handle. Fortunately, automation is here to help your IT department streamline processes and communication between all your other departments. 

Streamline your ticketing system

Top-notch customer service requires quick, personalized responses. But when you're a growing company, it can be challenging for a support team to keep track of new tickets or customer messages—especially when they're coming from multiple places. 

Use automation to ensure the right team gets updated in the right place, no matter which department initially gets the message. That way, the support team can respond quickly, and no messages fall through the cracks. 

Easily build reports across apps (and teams)

Accurate reporting is critical to company growth and learning. By consolidating data across apps and teams, everyone gets insights on audience, recurring bugs, buying trends, and more. This allows the whole company to make educated, audience-based decisions. 

Use Zapier to gather data from multiple places, so you can build consolidated reports automatically. 

Improve digital security

Digital security protects customer, employee, and business information. It's a critical part of any business, no matter their size. You can use automation to streamline password protection across your organization so the right people have the right passwords. 

You can also use automation to monitor fraud, helping you save time and money. 

Stay connected with automation

Automation is a necessary part of any company's tool kit. It allows you to grow faster—without sacrificing your employee experience.