What tasks can a small business outsource?

Short answer

What tasks can a small business outsource? Any task that is repeatable, follows rules you can write down, and can be done inside your own systems. In practice that means customer support, call answering, inbox management, bookings, data entry, CRM updates, order processing, invoicing and credit control.

• Outsource first: the repeatable task that costs you the most revenue when it slips.
• Good candidates fill at least 15 hours a week and follow a clear procedure.
• Front office: calls, email, live chat, WhatsApp and appointment booking.
• Back office: data entry, CRM updates, order processing, invoicing and reporting.
• Keep in-house: strategy, pricing, key client relationships, hiring and final sign-off.

How do you decide what to outsource?

Decide by testing each task against four questions: is it repeatable, can the rules be written down, can it be done inside your systems, and does it pull a senior person away from revenue-earning work? A task that passes all four is a strong candidate for business process outsourcing (BPO).

Volume matters too. A task that takes two hours a week is rarely worth the setup effort of outsourcing on its own. Group related tasks, such as inbox triage, CRM updates and quote follow-up, into a role of 15 to 40 hours and outsource the role.

• What is BPO and how can it help UK businesses?
• Types of BPO explained

Which front-office tasks can you outsource?

Front-office tasks are the customer-facing ones, and they are often the most valuable to outsource because slow replies cost sales immediately. A trained team can cover them throughout trading hours with escalation to your staff for anything commercial.

• Answering inbound calls, taking details and booking jobs or appointments.
• Replying to customer emails and helpdesk tickets.
• Running live chat on your website.
• Handling WhatsApp Business and social media messages.
• Following up quotes and missed enquiries.
• Logging and routing complaints to the right person.

• outsourced customer support for UK SMEs
• Outsourced appointment booking and diary management

Which back-office tasks can you outsource?

Back-office tasks keep the business running behind the scenes. They are rules-based and measurable, which makes them easy to hand over and easy to check. They are also where owners lose most of their evenings.

• Data entry, document processing and scanning into systems.
• CRM updates, de-duplication and pipeline hygiene.
• Order processing, returns and stock updates.
• Raising invoices, preparing supplier bills and credit control chasing.
• Compiling weekly and monthly reports.
• Inbox management: triage, tagging and drafting replies for approval.

• Data entry outsourcing for UK businesses
• Outsourcing CRM admin and data hygiene
• Outsourced inbox management

What should a small business never outsource?

Never outsource the decisions that define the business: strategy, pricing, which customers to take on, hiring and firing, and relationships with your most important clients. Keep final sign-off on anything that commits money or reputation, such as large refunds, contract terms and public responses to serious complaints.

You can outsource the preparation behind those decisions. A team can compile the pricing data, draft the complaint response or shortlist CVs. The decision stays with you.

What is it worth outsourcing, in pounds?

Value a task by what it costs to do in-house and what it frees up. From April 2026 the National Living Wage is £12.71 an hour and employer National Insurance is 15% above £5,000 a year. With the 3% pension contribution and 28 days' holiday, a minimum-wage employee costs about £16.27 per worked hour before overheads. If the owner does the task, value their hour at what they could bill or sell instead.

Managed offshore BPO typically costs £9–£18 per hour and onshore UK providers £20–£35, as indicative market ranges. A task worth outsourcing usually shows a clear saving on the first number and a larger gain on the second.

• BPO cost per hour in the UK
• Work out the ROI of outsourcing

How do you pick your first task?

Pick the task that is both painful and safe: frequent enough to matter, documented enough to hand over, and low-risk enough that a mistake in week one is fixable. Inbox triage and call answering are common first choices because the gain is immediate and drafts can be reviewed.

• Score each task 1 to 5 for hours, revenue impact, documentation and risk.
• Pick the highest total with a risk score you are comfortable with.
• Run it for 90 days, then add the next task.

When is a task not ready to outsource?

A task is not ready if the rules change every week, if only one person knows how it works and cannot explain it, or if it depends on systems the team cannot access securely. Fix those first. Documenting the task often reveals that half of it could be simplified or automated.

• Document your processes before you outsource
• Is your business ready to outsource?

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see in owner-run businesses: the owner lists "admin" as the problem, but the list shows 12 separate tasks. Five of them, including CRM updates, quote chasing and supplier invoice entry, make up most of the hours and follow clear rules. Those become one outsourced role. The other seven stay, or are dropped.

• See client work
• BPO Solutions for UK businesses

Checklist: build your outsourcing list

Do this in one sitting with your diary for the last two weeks.

• List every recurring task and the hours it took.
• Mark each as front office, back office or decision.
• Cross out every decision; those stay in-house.
• Score the rest for hours, revenue impact, documentation and risk.
• Group related tasks into roles of 15 to 40 hours.
• Pick one role to outsource first.
• Write the procedure for that role before asking for quotes.

Next step

Send us your task list and we will tell you what to outsource first, what to keep, and what the first role would cost. 30 minutes, no pitch.