It all started with a near disaster—a cash catastrophe, if you will.

Botkeeper CEO and cofounder Enrico Palmerino was running a previous startup called ThinkLite, which was doing well and growing faster than most startups. But the company’s rapid growth meant that it was difficult to keep up with all their accounting needs. To sum it up, Enrico and team ran out of cash because they had no insight into what their cash flow or balance was due to delayed financials.

A new client is added to QBO, and simultaneously that client is added to your marketing welcome campaign in Mailchimp.

It’s always a good idea to welcome new clients to your business in some personal manner. It makes them feel like they’re going to be treated well in their brand new relationship with you, and it helps answer any on-boarding questions before they arise.

Imagine…a new client is entered by one of your bookkeepers into QuickBooks Online (QBO), and you’re automatically emailed a notification acknowledging the action. But not only that—you also learn that they’ve been added to a running Google spreadsheet of all your current clients.

This scenario, and many more, are easy to achieve using a type of middleware integration software like Zapier. In this article, we’ll explain how easy it is to set that automation up, and we'll show you some other ideas, too.

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We’re in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), and most industry leaders believe the two concepts—working in tandem—will be what creates massive growth for companies in every vertical. It’s actually what’s known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and we probably haven’t even hit the thick of it yet.

It's 2019, and we have machines to do nearly every awful task that we never wanted to do again...a dishwasher for our dishes, washing machine for smelly clothes, GPS for getting us anywhere, cars that drive and park themselves (also for getting us anywhere). But what about other terrible tasks? We're talking about things that would not only make our personal lives better, but also improve our professional lives.