Back office automation tools using Visual Basic for Applications in Microsoft Excel

Abstract

Large companies are starting to treat automation as a high-priority initiative to be implemented during the upcoming years. Yet, while great strides have been made in applying workplace technologies, it is argued that small businesses face more difficulties than big firms when it comes to a change in their operating system, as well as to exploit the returns to scale. This paper aims to demonstrate that Small and Medium Enterprises can also benefit from automation. Using Visual Basic for Applications, we created a program to automate certain tasks of an existent firm. In this way, we provide evidence that smaller firms could take advantage of a simple and feasible automation of processes.