How to Automate Your Print Shop Workflow
Print shop automation is not about replacing people — it is about freeing your team from repetitive tasks so they can focus on producing great work. Here is where to start.
What "Automation" Actually Means for Print Shops
When we say print shop automation, we are not talking about robots running your presses. We are talking about eliminating the manual, repetitive administrative work that eats into your day: writing the same order details twice, manually calculating prices, chasing customers for payment updates, and building reports in spreadsheets at month-end.
Print workflow software automates these tasks so your team spends less time on paperwork and more time on production.
Without Automation
- -Manually write order details on paper, then re-enter into a notebook or spreadsheet
- -Calculate pricing with a calculator for every variation and quantity
- -Verbally tell operators what jobs to work on next
- -Manually track who paid and how much in a separate ledger
- -Build monthly sales reports by hand from receipts
With Automation
- +Order details captured once in a digital form — no duplicate entry
- +Pricing auto-calculated from your product catalog with variations
- +Operators see their assigned jobs on their own dashboard
- +Payments recorded with method, timestamp, and staff — auto-updates balance
- +Sales reports generated instantly with real-time data
6 Print Shop Workflows You Should Automate First
Pricing Calculation
Set up your product catalog once with base prices, size-based pricing, and add-ons. Every new order calculates the total automatically.
Job Assignment
Assign operators per item when creating the order. They see their queue instantly — no verbal handoffs or sticky notes needed.
Status Updates
As operators update job status (printing, done, quality check), the order dashboard reflects it in real-time for managers and cashiers.
Balance Tracking
Every payment automatically recalculates the remaining balance. No more mental math or digging through receipts.
Deadline Visibility
See all upcoming deadlines in one view. Overdue orders surface automatically so nothing slips through the cracks.
Report Generation
Daily sales, monthly revenue, top products, customer spend — all generated from your order data without manual compilation.
The Real Cost of Not Automating
Consider a shop doing 20 orders per day. If each order takes 10 extra minutes of manual admin (writing details, calculating prices, updating the ledger, building reports) — that is over 3 hours per day or 80+ hours per month spent on tasks that software handles instantly.
That is an entire employee's worth of time. And it does not count the cost of errors: mispriced orders, lost payments, and missed deadlines that erode customer trust.
Print shop automation software like PrintOMS typically pays for itself within the first month through time savings alone — before counting the reduction in errors and lost revenue.
Automate Your Print Shop Today
Stop spending hours on manual admin. PrintOMS automates your order workflow from intake to delivery. Free 30-day trial, no credit card required.