Tips for small business owners on how to ease the daily struggles with accounts.

The turbulence of today’s climate means that business owners are facing an abundance of pressures to ensure business survival. These pressures, combined with the day-to-day frustrations associated with running a company mean business owners can often feel that the time they have to spend actually ‘getting on with business’ is limited.

I firmly believe that the key to organisational longevity is to remove the burdens that business owners face from daily chores, such as the accounts. Managing accounts is a huge challenge for small business owners and far too often, time and therefore money, is wasted due to cumbersome and consuming accounting requirements and processes.

In today’s electronic age small business owners must use technology to their advantage to simplify daily tasks and free up their time to focus on their core business activities. When technology that is both easy to install and use is readily available, it makes no sense at all to be wasting resource.

Below are some top tips for small business owners on how to ease the daily struggles with accounts:

Don’t duplicate

Far too often time is needlessly wasted duplicating efforts. Automating processes can enable businesses to save valuable resource whilst also eliminating the risk of mistakes caused by human error.

Never forget

Whilst freeing up cash flow is a necessity for business survival, far too often organisations fail to efficiently chase up outstanding invoices. Automated reminders can do the leg work for you; notifying you if an invoice is overdue, or even providing pre-written reminder letters for customers.

Remember your business is unique

One size doesn’t always fit all and so don’t fall into the trap of working from software that has generic accounting processes. Often these contain mandatory fields for information that isn’t relevant to your individual business, and time can be needlessly wasted adding redundant information. Ensure that the software is tailored for your own needs.

Focus on real time

Business owners often waste time due to the inability of accounts systems to update information sufficiently. Only accurate and up-to-date information will provide a true and clear overview of who owes what – whether it’s to suppliers or customers.

Live in the cloud

Key to getting mundane jobs, such as accounting, completed efficiently is the ability to get them done from wherever and whenever. Moving accounts to the cloud provides business owners with the mobility to submit an invoice on the train home from a client meeting, or get a full update on cash flow from the comfort of their own home.

Grant access

Make sure that your accounts are easily accessible to, and can be seamlessly updated by, more than one person in your business. This means that the business owner, bookkeeper and anyone else relevant, can update financial data in their own time, and will also have the ability to see an up-to-date and accurate picture of the business finances at any time.

Ensure customer satisfaction

If a standard discount has been agreed with a specific customer, ensure this is set up automatically in their invoicing. There’s nothing worse than a small human mistake leading to a disgruntled customer, which can take both time and money to sort out.

Don’t overpay an accountant

Freeing up time doesn’t always mean costly payments to an accountant; whilst accountants can provide an invaluable specialist service, there are more cost effective ways to ensure daily accounts are completed.