The current economy is taking its toll on businesses.
We’re all scrutinizing profitability and making tough choices. It’s hard to keep a positive attitude, but slower times offer us opportunities.
Take the time while the market is slow to institute important changes in your business processes and structure. When the market turns around, you’ll be more profitable than you ever were before.
Look for ways to increase productivity by injecting new technology and processes.
There are many tools available now to help even the smallest business that were too expensive just a few years ago.
These include:
Electronic faxing & VoIP
Fax machines and traditional phone lines are expensive. There are online fax options that allow you to send and receive faxes via email for less than $10 per month.
Voice over Internet Protocol phone systems are affordable, too, and can facilitate telecommuting, which may allow you to cut back on employee costs.
Electronic filing
The process of traditional filing is antiquated and costly. The supplies (folders, hanging folders, labels) and time required to create and maintain filing systems can cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars each year.
All it takes to replace this system is a scanner and space on a shared drive.
Organize your file structure the same as you would in a filing cabinet and people will have no difficulty in finding what they need in seconds. If you have an enormous amount of paperwork, there is affordable document management software available.
Building an Intranet
In any organization, communication is vital to success.
Take a close look at your current process, both paper and verbal. Employee handbooks and announcements are easily transferred to a company website in digital format. Incorporate a blog for management to keep everyone well informed on a daily basis.
The website can be in-house on a local server or put on the Internet with secure access.
Speeding up receivables
The costs of printing and mailing invoices can reach 56 cents each, with the current costs of paper, envelopes, ink and postage. That doesn’t include the time to print, stuff and mail them.
Your customer’s costs include opening, sorting and processing.
When money is tight, receivables start aging. Emailing invoices will get them in the hands of your customers quicker and perhaps closer to the top of the stack to pay.
If you want to increase your chances for payment more, consider accepting credit cards.
Merchant accounts are available from banks, but there are often hidden costs and variable charges. Small businesses may benefit from a PayPal merchant account.
PayPal offers a product called Virtual Terminal that allows you to process credit cards through the PayPal site with complete security.
Its collection fees are not variable from card to card as many typical merchant accounts are. The increase in cash flow by accepting credit cards often easily justifies the cost.
Wayne Jacobsen is president of Wild Web Works Inc. He can be contacted at 360-882-9005 or wayne@wildwebworks.com.
