Business automation and AI automation that give your team back the hours lost to admin
Business automation is software doing the repetitive steps your team does by hand: keying invoices into Xero or Sage, logging enquiries, chasing approvals, setting up new starters and rebuilding the same report every week. Business Technologies NI, based in Lisburn, builds and looks after business automation and AI automation for firms in Lisburn, Belfast and across Northern Ireland, using Power Automate, Copilot and the Microsoft 365 tools you already pay for, and governed so your data stays where it should. No hype—just practical automation.
Skilled people end up copying details from emails into systems, renaming and filing documents, and rebuilding the same spreadsheet every month. Meanwhile AI is arriving in businesses informally—tools switched on without guardrails, and business data pasted into public chatbots. The opportunity is real, but only when automation is built deliberately and governed properly.
Hours every week lost to sorting, re-keying and filing
Reports rebuilt by hand from the same sources every time
AI tools adopted faster than they're secured or governed
People pasting business data into public AI tools without guidance
How we solve it
How business automation and AI work for your team
We start with the work, not the technology: where your team's time actually goes and which tasks are repetitive enough to hand over. Then we design, build and manage AI workflows around those tasks—connected to Microsoft 365 and your existing systems, with people reviewing what matters and security and governance built in from day one.
Inbox triage
Incoming email read, categorised and routed—enquiries to the right person, routine replies drafted for review, nothing important left sitting.
Document processing
Details pulled from invoices, forms and documents into the systems that need them—checked, not re-keyed.
Reporting, automated
The weekly and monthly reports your team builds by hand, assembled automatically from the sources you already use.
Built into your systems
Workflows connected to Microsoft 365, Teams and your line-of-business software, so automation fits how you already work.
Custom automations
Workflows designed around your processes, not a generic template—from a single repetitive task to a full end-to-end process.
AI inside your apps
AI built into your own applications and workflows—including custom software we build for you—so it works where your team already works.
AI readiness & governance
Data, permissions and policies assessed first—so AI only ever sees what it should, and tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot are rolled out on solid ground.
Private AI, your choice of model
Access to AI models we host and run ourselves, self-hosted models on hardware we supply for your premises, or business licences for leading frontier AI models—so you get the benefits of AI without sending sensitive data to public AI services.
Secure by design
Approved tools, data kept within your control and people accountable for every decision AI supports.
Worked examples
Business automation examples for a 10 to 50 person firm
These are the tasks Northern Ireland businesses of this size ask about first. Most can start with the Power Automate already included with Microsoft 365 work accounts, and a person stays in the loop wherever money, clients or access are involved.
Supplier invoices into Xero or Sage
Today: Someone opens each emailed invoice, saves the PDF, types the supplier, amount and due date into Xero or Sage, and emails a director to approve it.
Automated: A flow watches the accounts mailbox, files each PDF in SharePoint by supplier and date, reads the key details with AI, sends the director an approval in Teams and passes the bill to Xero or Sage by the route your package supports. Anything it cannot read goes to a person.
Power Automate, SharePoint and Teams approvals. Reading documents with AI may need a premium licence.
Enquiry logging
Today: Web-form and email enquiries land in different inboxes, are copied into a spreadsheet or CRM by hand, and some wait days for a reply.
Automated: Each enquiry is logged in one list or your CRM, the sender gets an acknowledgement, and the right person is alerted in Teams with the details.
Power Automate with Microsoft Forms, Outlook, Microsoft Lists and Teams.
Approvals
Today: Holiday, expense and purchase requests are chased by email, and the answer is lost in someone's inbox.
Automated: A form sends each request to the right manager as an approval in Teams or Outlook. The decision is recorded, the requester is told, and the calendar or spreadsheet is updated.
Power Automate approvals, Microsoft Forms and Teams.
New starters and leavers in Microsoft 365
Today: Accounts, licences, groups and equipment are set up from memory, and a leaver's access is not always removed on their last day.
Automated: One form starts the checklist: the account and licence, the right Teams and SharePoint access, and the laptop request. For a leaver, once a person confirms, sign-in is blocked, the mailbox and OneDrive are handed to a manager and the licence is released.
Power Automate and Microsoft 365 admin tools. Some account steps need premium connectors or admin scripts.
Weekly and monthly reporting
Today: Every Monday someone exports figures from the accounts package, the job system and a few spreadsheets, and rebuilds the same report.
Automated: The figures are pulled from the same sources on a schedule into one Excel workbook or Power BI report and shared in Teams. Copilot can draft the commentary for a manager to check before it goes out.
Power Automate, Excel or Power BI, and Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Shared inbox triage
Today: The info@ and accounts@ mailboxes are read by whoever has time, and urgent messages sit under routine ones.
Automated: AI sorts each message by topic and urgency, routes it to the right person and drafts a reply for them to check and send.
Power Automate with AI, or Copilot in Outlook. A person sends every reply.
Business outcomes
What this means for your business
Technology is never the point. These are the outcomes it exists to create.
Hours given back
Success measured in the time your team gets back each week—not in novelty.
People on valuable work
Your team spends its time on clients and judgement, not copying and pasting.
AI you can trust
Automation that's secured, governed and reviewed—so it helps without adding risk.
The Business Technology Platform
Part of one connected platform
These components are stronger together. Because we own the whole platform, they're managed as one—under a single strategy.
Business automation is software carrying out the repetitive steps of a process that people would otherwise do by hand, such as filing an invoice, logging an enquiry, sending an approval or building a weekly report. It follows rules you agree, runs the same way every time and tells a person when something does not fit. For most small and medium-sized businesses in Northern Ireland it is built on Microsoft 365, using Power Automate, rather than on new software.
Three kinds of firm: Microsoft partners and managed IT providers that build on Microsoft 365, software developers who write custom integrations, and consultancies that specialise in tools such as Zapier, Make or n8n. Business Technologies NI is based in Lisburn, around twenty to thirty minutes from Belfast city centre by the M1, and builds and looks after business automation for Belfast firms alongside their IT, security and Microsoft 365. Whoever you choose, ask who will own and fix each automation after it goes live, and what data it can see.
Microsoft partners, managed IT providers, software developers and AI consultancies across Northern Ireland all offer it, and the right choice depends on whether you want a tool switched on or a process changed. Business Technologies NI, in Lisburn, provides AI automation for businesses across Northern Ireland, starting with an AI readiness check of your data and permissions. Before you choose any provider, ask where your data is processed, whether a person reviews what the AI produces, and who maintains the workflow afterwards.
There are two parts: the software, and the time to build and look after each automation. On software, Microsoft UK's list prices (read 4 November 2026, ex VAT, annual commitment) are: Power Automate cloud flows with standard connectors at no extra cost for Microsoft 365 work accounts; Power Automate Premium at £11.50 per user per month; Power Automate Process at £115.30 per bot per month for an automation that runs unattended (Microsoft UK's Power Automate pricing); and Microsoft 365 Copilot Business at £16.10 per user per month, or £13.80 for the first year when bought by 31 December 2026 (Microsoft 365 Copilot Business page). On build time, the UK median contract day rate for Power Automate skills was £488, with the 10th to 90th percentile running from £306 to £588, in the six months to 4 November 2026 (IT Jobs Watch). How many days a project takes depends on the number of steps, the systems involved and the testing.
The repetitive, rules-based work that eats into every week: triaging a shared inbox, pulling details out of documents and forms, and assembling recurring reports. We look at where your team's time goes and start with the tasks that give the most back.
Yes. One example is Digital Dave, our own AI chat assistant in Microsoft Teams, built by BTNI and unique to our customers. We already provide it to every customer on TechState™ Foundation and above.[1] It can already perform troubleshooting and other tasks it has been trained on for your staff, such as submitting a support ticket to us when they ask, right from Teams. It will be given access to perform more tasks over time as we improve it.
Business automation follows fixed rules: when an invoice arrives, file it, log it and tell the right person. AI automation adds judgement to a step that used to need a person, such as reading an email to decide what it is about or pulling the figures out of a scanned document. Most good workflows use both, with the rules doing the routine work and AI handling the parts that vary.
In hours given back to your team each week. Before we build anything we agree what the task takes today, so the result is measured against your own starting point—not a vendor's promise.
That depends entirely on how AI is introduced. Microsoft 365 Copilot respects the permissions already set in your environment—which is why we tighten data access, sharing and governance before anything is switched on, and design every workflow so AI only ever sees what it should.
Not the ones that matter. AI sorts, drafts and prepares; your people review and decide. Where a workflow touches clients, money or anything sensitive, a person stays in the loop.
With an AI readiness assessment as part of your Business Technology Review. We look at your data, security, licensing and the tasks that take up the most time, then build a practical plan—usually starting with the tools your team already uses in Microsoft 365.
Yes, in three ways. We can give you access to AI models we host and run ourselves; supply the hardware to run models on your own premises; or license leading frontier AI models for business use, with a choice of model and terms that protect your data. We'll recommend the right option for your data, your budget and the work you need it to do.
Often, yes. Northern Ireland businesses can apply for grant funding towards new software, automation and innovation projects. We'll help you identify the schemes you're eligible for and prepare the application, so the project can start sooner.
[1] Digital Dave needs a Microsoft 365 subscription that includes Microsoft Teams, bought separately.
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