Automation is the future. It might seem like just a trend now, but with it, your business will leave the competition in the dust. Even Salesforce is taking note and has introduced an automation tool called Salesforce Flow.

If your organization struggles with payment flows, approval processes, or any payment routine tasks that eat up valuable time, you’re in the right place. Here’s how you can utilize Salesforce Flow and accounts receivables (AR) collections process flows to bring your business up to speed on the automation front.

What Are Salesforce Flows?

Salesforce Flow is an automation tool on the platform that helps users streamline and automate complex processes. Users can create custom workflows, known as “flows,” without possessing extensive coding knowledge. These flows can handle a wide range of tasks, from simple financial tasks like processing invoice approvals and managing recurring payments to more complex ones, such as handling refunds, tracking transaction statuses, and updating financial records in real time.

What Are the 5 Types of Flows in Salesforce?

There are two main types of Salesforce Flows: Screen Flows and Auto-launched Flows. Auto-launched Flows are then divided into four additional types. That’s how you get the five types of flows. Let’s take a look at those.

Screen Flows

These flows allow you to create custom user interfaces (screens) to collect or display information. Screen Flows are ideal for processes that require user input, such as creating new customer records by prompting users to enter their data. 

Auto-launched Flows

These Salesforce flows don’t require user interaction and thus operate in the background. They require specific events to trigger them and fall into four main subcategories:

  • Record-Triggered Flows: As its name suggests, any change in records — creating, updating, or deleting — automatically initiates these flows. For instance, if you mark a payment as completed in your CRM, a record-triggered AR collections process flow can automatically update the customer’s account balance, send a confirmation email, and notify the finance team.
  • Schedule-Triggered Flows: Usually triggered by scheduled or specified intervals, these flows are particularly useful for periodic tasks such as sending monthly invoices for timely payments.
  • Platform Event-Triggered Flows: These flows are specifically created to trigger actions following an event in a specific platform. If your invoicing system has problems creating invoices, for example, you can create platform event-triggered payment flows to alert your technical team to find out what the cause of the error is.

When To Use Salesforce Flows

Now that you understand what Salesforce Flows are and how its different types work let’s go over when to use them. There are several instances where utilizing flows might be beneficial, including:

  • Automating Routine Tasks: Repetitive tasks can take away valuable time from important duties. To reduce the time it takes to complete them, you can utilize Salesforce Flow and divert your team’s attention to other revenue-generating tasks.
  • Promoting Consistent Processes: Consistency in certain processes, such as onboarding new customers on your platform, is essential for accurate data collection. Screen Flows can be particularly helpful in this situation by ensuring that the onboarding process follows the correct order every time.
  • Enhancing Customer Experience: Customer satisfaction is crucial for business growth. As such, you must find ways to improve or maintain it at high levels. Salesforce flows can help in enhancing CX by automating processes that involve customers, such as maintaining communication for important events and ensuring you send personalized messages.
  • Real-Time Responses to Events: Utilizing flows can help enhance your organization’s reactions to events as they happen in real time. This is especially crucial when certain events, such as downtimes or service outages, affect your business’s operations. In such scenarios, flows may be beneficial for alerting the necessary teams to handle the situation.

How To Create Salesforce Flows 

You can follow the following steps when creating new Salesforce flows. We’re using Screen Flows to demonstrate.

Step 1: Navigate to Flow Builder

Flow Builder is the interface that lets you create Salesforce flows. On your Salesforce org, search for “Flow” in the Quick Find box and select “Flow Builder” to quickly access it. 

Step 2: Create a New Flow

Click on the “New Flow” button to start a new flow. Choose “Select Start From Scratch,” then click “Next.”

Step 3: Select a Flow Type

You’ll receive a prompt to select a new flow type. Since we’re creating a Screen Flow, select “Screen Flow” and then click “Create.” 

Step 4: Add Screens and Elements

Start by adding screens to your flow and customizing each by adding fields, buttons, and other components as needed. Lastly, click the plus (+) sign to add all the elements the flow will require to define what happens at each step of the flow.

Note: You may need to connect the elements to guide the order in which the platform will execute them if in free form.

Step 5: Save and Activate Your Flow

After configuring everything you need for your Screen Flow to work, save it by clicking the “Save” button. 

Step 6: Test and Activate

Before launching your flows, you must test them to ensure they work as expected. Once you ascertain that the flows work as intended, click “Activate” to make it available for use in your Salesforce org. 

Best Practices for Creating Flows

As is the case with most processes, creating Salesforce flows requires you to adopt several best practices. These include the following:

  • Plan Before You Build: Before creating flows, think about what you want them to achieve, how they’ll help streamline your processes, and what you’ll require. This is so that you don’t create flows for the sake of it. 
  • Use a Modular Design: This requires breaking down complex flows into smaller, modular flows or sub-flows to facilitate reusability, easy maintenance, and troubleshooting.
  • Test Thoroughly: Testing flows before launch is highly recommended to catch errors before they affect processes. You can utilize the debug feature in Flow Builder for testing.

Utilize Salesforce Flows for Streamlined Process

Flows are essential for certain business processes. Payment processes can especially benefit from incorporating flows due to their repetitive and sometimes complex nature. 

With Chargent Flow APIs, creating flows is easy. With several pre-configured payment flow templates available on our Developer Site, integrating payment processes into your Salesforce environment has never been easier. These templates cover a wide range of use cases, from account creation to automated collections and field service payments. 

Get started today with Chargent Flow APIs.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the reason for using flows instead of Apex code?

Flows provide a simple, intuitive way for users without coding knowledge to automate complex, repetitive business processes. Additionally, flows are faster to create and deploy because they utilize the Flow Builder interface, while Apex requires you to write Apex code from scratch. 

What are the three basic building blocks of Salesforce Flow?

A Salesforce flow should incorporate the following three main components for it to work: elements, connectors, and resources.

Where is the Flow Builder in Salesforce?

You can find the Flow Builder in Salesforce Lightning under the setup menu. To access this menu, click on your profile icon, and from the drop-down menu, select “Setup.” In the Quick Find box, type in Flows, and after selecting “Flows,” you will have launched Flow Builder.

What are the advantages of using flows in Salesforce? 

There are many advantages of using flows, such as the automation of processes, their ease of use due to their no-code nature, and their overall contribution to organizational productivity. 

How many flows are there in Salesforce? 

While there are two main types of flows in Salesforce — Screen and Auto-launched Flows — the total number is five. This is because Auto-launched Flows are further divided into Record-Triggered, Schedule-Triggered, and Platform-Triggered Event Flows.