Process sales or other transactions
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
This is the most automatable shape of work there is, and also the shape that most needs a live connection to the system the record lives in. Without that connection an agent can prepare the entry but cannot file it.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Recording, documentation and administration |
| Jobs that do it | 12 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Tools and auth, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Performing Administrative Activities (4.A.4.c.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 12 occupations that perform it.
- Operate cash registers to accept payment from customers.
- Receive payment by cash, check, credit cards, vouchers, or automatic debits.
- Exchange money, credit, tickets, or casino chips and make change for customers.
- Compute charges for merchandise or services and receive payments.
- Fill customer orders from stock, and place orders when requested items are out of stock.
- Compute sales prices, total purchases, and receive and process cash or credit payment.
- Draw up contracts for advertising work, and collect payments due.
- Calculate premiums and establish payment method.
- Complete sales order tickets and submit for processing of client-requested transactions.
- Collect payment for transportation and accommodations from customer.
- Prepare and submit sales contracts for orders.
- Deliver merchandise and collect payment.
- Process merchandise returns and exchanges.
- Rent items, arrange for provision of services to customers, and accept returns.
- Receive and fill telephone orders for parts.
- Exchange merchandise for customers and accept returns.
- Issue trading stamps, and redeem food stamps and coupons.
- Receive payment or obtain credit authorization.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for recording, documentation and administration, and what it costs.
The work is not writing the record, it is filing it where the record lives. Make reaches most of those systems from $9 a month, which is the cheapest honest start; Composio is for when you are writing the agent yourself.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
12 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Advertising Sales Agents
- Cashiers
- Counter and Rental Clerks
- Door-to-Door Sales Workers, News and Street Vendors, and Related Workers
- Gambling Change Persons and Booth Cashiers
- Insurance Sales Agents
- Parts Salespersons
- Pharmacy Technicians
- Retail Salespersons
- Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Technical and Scientific Products
- Securities, Commodities, and Financial Services Sales Agents
- Travel Agents
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Execute financial transactions”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.