# Automating the Admin: Where the Hours Go and What to Start With

> Find where the admin hours go, pick the first thing to automate, and estimate the saving from your own numbers.

- Published: 2026-09-16 · Updated: 2026-10-13
- Running an agency · 7 min read · The Financi team
- Canonical page: https://www.financi.co.il/en/articles/automate-the-admin-hours-saved

## The short version

- Start with a measurement, not a tool: where time really goes in your agency, not where people say it goes.
- Automate first what repeats a lot, is simple, and where human error is expensive.
- Good automation leaves the person with the decisions and the conversation, and takes away typing, reminders and hand-offs.
- The savings calculator in this article is a scenario based on your assumptions. It is not a promise and not an industry average.

In many agencies a large part of the working day goes on things that don't require pension expertise: retyping details already typed, chasing a document, checking where a process is stuck, passing a message from one team to another. This work is necessary, but it isn't what the client pays for. That is exactly where automation helps, provided it is aimed correctly.

## Where the hours go

There are no universal numbers. Every agency has its own profile. But most admin work falls into a few familiar categories. Go through them and mark where it hurts most for you.

*Categories of admin work. Your own ranking will differ*

| Category | Example | The pain |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Re-keying | The same client details in a form, a system and a document | Time and errors |
| Chasing documents | Reminders to the client, checking what's missing | Draining, and nobody remembers |
| Hand-offs | Agent passes work to back office or operator | Information lost on the way |
| Status tracking | Where a process is stuck, who owns it now | Dependence on whoever remembers |
| Call write-ups | A recording and a conversation nobody summarised | Knowledge not kept |
| Document prep | Forms, sending for signature, filing | Repetitive, manual filing |

> **Measure one week.** Before choosing, ask each team member to note for one week roughly how much time went on each category. No need for precision, only order of magnitude. The result is almost always surprising.

## What to automate first

Not everything should be automated, and not everything should be automated now. Three tests help choose the first place:

1. **Frequency.** Does it happen daily or weekly, or once every few months? Start with what repeats.
2. **Simplicity.** Is there a clear rule (“when the client signs, open a task”) or does it need judgement each time?
3. **Cost of error.** Does a typo or a forgotten step cost a lot? That's where automation adds the most confidence.

**Good candidates to automate**

- Reminders for a missing document
- Opening a task after a signature
- Handing a process between teams with all details
- Logging a call and passing a summary to the card
- Proposing values for repeat fields, for a person to approve

**Leave these to a person**

- The first conversation with a lead
- Explaining a sensitive finding to a client
- A pension or insurance recommendation
- A decision when something departs from the rule
- Asking for consent and explaining why it's needed

## Estimating savings: from your numbers

The tool below lets you enter how often a task happens per week, how many minutes it takes, and what share of that time automation could cut. The result is a scenario based on your assumptions, not a promise, and no comparison with other agencies. If the estimates are rough, so is the result.

*Interactive tool on the web page: How many hours might free up in your agency*

## How to roll out without breaking the work

1. **Pick one process** — For example: from a lead asking for a check to a signed form. Document it step by step, including who does what.
2. **Mark the repeating steps** — Where do people retype? Where do they forget? Where do they wait for someone? Those are the candidates.
3. **Automate one step at a time** — For example: when the client signs, a task opens for the operator. Only when that runs steadily do you move to the next step.
4. **Keep a person in the loop** — Wherever important information gets written, add approval. In Financi the process assistant proposes values for fields and you approve each one, with undo.
5. **Review after a month** — Did the time really drop? Did a new problem appear? Fix before you expand.

- **Week 1** — **Measure**: Note how much time goes on each category.
- **Week 2** — **Choose**: One process, three tests: frequency, simplicity, cost of error.
- **Weeks 3-4** — **Switch on**: One automated step, closely watched on real processes.
- **Month 2** — **Review and expand**: Compare with the team's feel and the first measurement, then pick the next step.

**Before you automate a process**

- [ ] We have the process documented step by step, including who does what.
- [ ] We identified at least three repeating steps that could be automated.
- [ ] For every automated step it's clear who is notified when something fails.
- [ ] Where client information is written there is human approval, or at least undo.
- [ ] We can check that the automation ran and hasn't failed silently.
- [ ] The team has been told what changes and why, before it starts.

> **Automation that hides a failure.** The big danger isn't automation that doesn't work, but automation that fails silently. A process that used to break visibly now simply doesn't happen, and nobody notices. Every automation needs a way to see that it ran, and what happened when it didn't.

To see it in practice: [Financi OPS: agency operations — processes, tasks and statistics](https://www.financi.co.il/en/ops).

## Frequently asked questions

### How many hours can we really save?

We don't have a number that fits everyone, so we don't quote one. It depends on your processes, team size and how much work repeats. The calculator in this article gives a scenario based on the assumptions you enter.

### Will automation replace staff?

The aim is to shift time from typing and chasing to the client and the conversation. How the agency uses the freed time is its own decision, separate from the technical question.

### Where do we start if we have no system at all?

First bring information into one place: clients, conversations and documents. You can't automate a process scattered across ten places. After that, pick one step.

### Is it safe to use AI to fill fields?

As long as a person approves each value before it is written. That's the principle in Financi: the AI proposes and you approve. For any such use, check with your compliance officer what may be processed and under what conditions.

### How do we know the automation is working?

Decide on a simple measure in advance: how many tasks opened automatically, how many processes got stuck, the average time to close. Then review them monthly. See also the article on the metrics an agency should track.

> **Want to map where the time goes in your agency?** We'll walk through your process and see which steps to automate first without losing control. [Book a demo](https://www.financi.co.il/en#contact)

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*The information in this article is general only and is not financial, pension, legal or tax advice, nor a substitute for personal advice. Demos and calculators are illustrative models: your numbers will differ.*