5 Zapier Automations Every Small Business Should Set Up Today

You don't need a developer to start automating. Zapier connects over 5,000 apps—and these five automations deliver immediate ROI.

1. Auto-Save Email Attachments to Google Drive

How much time do you spend downloading attachments and organizing them into folders? This Zap does it automatically.

Trigger: New email with attachment in Gmail
Action: Upload file to Google Drive folder

Pro tip: Use Gmail filters to only trigger on specific senders or subjects, then organize into client-specific folders.

Time saved: 30+ minutes/week

2. Create Trello Cards from Form Submissions

Every form submission that needs action should become a task—automatically.

Trigger: New Typeform/Google Form submission
Action: Create Trello card with form details

Include all the relevant form fields in the card description so your team has context without hunting through emails.

Time saved: 1-2 hours/week

3. Send Slack Notifications for New Sales

Celebrate wins in real-time. When a new payment comes through Stripe, notify your team.

Trigger: New charge in Stripe
Action: Send Slack message to #sales-wins

Include customer name, amount, and product. It boosts morale and keeps everyone informed.

Time saved: Plus immeasurable team motivation

4. Sync New Customers to Your CRM

Manually entering customer data is error-prone and tedious. Automate it.

Trigger: New customer in Stripe/QuickBooks
Action: Create or update contact in HubSpot/Salesforce

Use Zapier's Formatter step to clean up the data before it hits your CRM—standardize phone formats, capitalize names, etc.

Time saved: 45 minutes/week

5. Automated Meeting Follow-Ups

Never forget to follow up after a meeting again.

Trigger: Calendar event ends in Google Calendar
Action: Create task in Todoist/Asana due tomorrow
Bonus Action: Create draft email in Gmail

Filter by event title containing "meeting" or "call" to avoid triggering on personal calendar events.

Time saved: 1 hour/week + never dropping the ball

Beyond the Basics

Once you've set up these foundational automations, you can start combining them into multi-step workflows. Zapier's Paths feature lets you create branching logic—different actions based on different conditions.

The ROI of Simple Automation

Let's add it up:

At even $50/hour, that's nearly $10,000/year in recovered productivity—from five free or low-cost automations.

Need More Complex Workflows?

When your needs outgrow simple Zaps, it's time for custom integrations. PeakOps builds sophisticated automation systems that handle the workflows Zapier can't.