No matter how one puts it, time is money and it is truly valuable, especially for businesses of any kind.
However, in a time of crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses are put to the test with massive lockdowns resulting in the suspension of business operations for non-essential products and services.
Time is a critical factor for businesses and despite the challenges brought to the fore by this pandemic many are taking steps to rise from the ashes and ensure they have the time in their favour for business continuity.
Now is the best time to strategise effectively to reduce hidden costs and time to help you manage your finances to benefit your business. With remote work technology widely available, you might be surprised how you can use it to your advantage.
Enhance visibility and transparency over supplier and material spending
In business, time is essential and every minute counts, especially when working in a highly competitive market.
It would be wise to save yourself a lot of time by considering automating your redundant business processes such as data entry and extraction from supplier and material bills, emails, and PDF invoices, just to name a few, then auto-populate bills and checks.
Doing this can save you a lot of time and take a load off your staff to allow them to focus more on your business’s core functions and responsibilities.
There are digital accounting software applications available online that could automate such tasks and allow you to save no less than 25% of the time that you can allocate for your business.
Stop bleeding cash by reducing hidden costs
One of the common issues that beset businesses are delays in the submission and processing of employee expenses, which can be remedied when such claims are filed promptly and accurately.
Why not take advantage of digital solutions that would automate the process to save you time and money? Some applications allow employees to create digital snapshots of receipts, which then extracts the data from it and use it to auto-fill expense forms right away.
What’s more, these digital applications are highly accurate and reduce errors to avoid costly and time-consuming rework.
Also, you may be able to reconcile bank records and approve transactions based on existing bank rules and payment schedules.
Streamlined data capture and collection to avoid human errors
You can save a lot of precious time by automating administrative work such as financial data management, collection, and data entry. With these functions automated, you can focus more of your time doing your financial analysis and strategic planning.
You also avoid human reporting errors to not only save you time but will also give you the peace of mind in running your business.
This can also help you manage payroll and human resource functions easily and more accurately. What’s more, it can also help you file taxes promptly, efficiently, and accurately.
Leverage on AI
With artificial intelligence (AI), you can easily avoid missing out on key responsibilities which can cost you a lot of money, from overdraft checks, incorrect tax filing, missing data, etc.
For instance, recent statistics have shown that no less than 35% of invoices were paid late by as much as 31 days due to accounting and data errors last year costing no less than hundreds of billions of dollars.
With machine learning and automation, these errors can be addressed and allow businesses to focus more on their core functions.
Always remember that time is valuable and a single minute wasted can cost a lot, so make sure to plan effectively and strategise your business functions to save you a lot of time and maximise your earnings.