Power Automate consultant for the chasing nobody has time to do.
Castlane is a Power Automate consultant that builds the reminders, approvals, summaries and invoicing runs a growing business does by hand or forgets to do at all, in the Microsoft 365 you already have, with a failure path on every flow.
Built on its own or as part of a Power Apps system. Fixed price. How it works
What gets automated
Chasing and reminders
Outstanding certificates, unsigned timesheets, overdue invoices, documents that expire. A flow that checks every morning and emails the right person, so the chasing happens whether or not anyone remembers.
Approvals and handoffs
A quote that needs sign-off, a new starter that needs three people to do something, a job that is ready to invoice. The request goes to the right person, the answer is recorded, and the next step starts without an email chain.
Summaries and runs
The daily unbilled summary with the total in the subject line. The weekly pay run file. The month-end pack. Built once, run on a schedule, and the owner reads a number instead of building a spreadsheet to find it.
How a Castlane flow is built
- It filters at source. The flow asks for the twenty-eight outstanding records, not all two thousand, so it runs in seconds and stays inside the limits Microsoft puts on your plan.
- It has a failure path. A flow that breaks at three in the morning and tells nobody is worse than no flow at all, because everyone has stopped checking by hand. Every flow I build notifies someone when it fails.
- It writes down what it did. Sent, approved, skipped: recorded against the job or the person, so the audit trail is in the system and not in someone’s sent items.
- It is owned by the business, not by me. Flows run under a service account in your tenant, so they do not stop when a person leaves or I finish.
- The numbers are right. I built the invoicing run as a management accountant: what is billable, what is on hold, what has been credited. Automation that sends the wrong number faster is not an improvement.
Licensing and price
Most Microsoft 365 Business plans include Power Automate for flows that work with Microsoft 365 data such as SharePoint, Outlook and Excel. Flows that use Dataverse or premium connectors need a Power Automate or Power Apps licence, and the Review tells you which before anything is quoted.
A set of flows on its own is quoted as a fixed price after the call, usually from £900. Flows built as part of an application are included in the application build.
Client work, anonymised: Power Automate flows running daily, weekly and monthly payroll reporting and payment order cycles for a London tuition group, replacing manual preparation entirely. The demonstration flows in detail.
Questions about Power Automate
What is the difference between Power Automate and Power Apps?
Power Apps is the screen people use to enter and look at data. Power Automate is the work that happens without a screen: the reminder, the approval, the summary email, the file that gets created at month-end. Most systems need both; some businesses only need the automation.
Can Power Automate work with our spreadsheet as it is?
Often, yes, if the workbook is in SharePoint or OneDrive and laid out as a proper table. That is sometimes the right first step: automate the chasing now, replace the spreadsheet later. I will say which on the call.
What happens when a flow fails?
Every flow I build has a failure path that notifies a named person with what failed and on which record. Nothing fails silently.
Do flows stop working when staff leave?
Not if they are built properly. Flows run under a service account in your tenant rather than under an individual, so they survive staff changes and do not depend on me.