How to improve processes in your small business
When starting out on the journey of building your business it can often feel like “me, myself and I”, it’s likely much of the critical information only you know, and its you that has to juggle everything from product launches to account management and financial control. But as soon as you start to grow, you can quickly encounter problems when bringing on new team members if processes aren’t logical and systems not joined up. There is an endless list of apps and tools you can purchase or implement in order to streamline business processes, but navigating it can be tricky.
To remove as many teething problems as you can during growth, you should implement processes with the expectation of them being suitable for team growth as well as financial growth. Alongside this aim to make external facing processes transparent from the off to build strong relationships with clients, suppliers and partners. Here’s a few process improvements you can make to finesse the financial management of your small business.
Write a solid business plan and regularly review
A business plan will help you visualise where your business is now, and where you want to get to. It should include everything from target customers, internal operations, finances and new products.
Control Room Finance can support you in relating the financial results to the aspirations of the company. Setting up scenario models to show forecasted profits and cash enables you to make short, medium and long term plans. Knowledge is power, and having the power to make your business decisions is key.
Keep up-to-date cashflow records
It might sound obvious but how many of us know what cash we have available for investment in 3 months time or what the cash might look like after our VAT or CT bill? Most financial processes around cash and forecasting cash can be automated Control Room Finance can work with you to review your systems, streamline processes, and implement automation to save time and improve accuracy.
Process payroll automatically and at the right time
Even if your small business is doing well, managing payroll can be a difficult challenge. It’s one of the biggest outgoings and if something you’re owed doesn’t come in, or plans aren’t implemented effectively, you can be lacking. By optimising your payroll process, you can improve your cash flow, making it easier to pay employees each payday. Determine the best day for payments in the month, or if the date is already set, review other outgoings or money coming in to ensure you’ll be easily able to cover the cost. Automatic payroll solutions can speed up the process and ensure everything is logged when needed.
Automate invoicing and invoice quickly
Expanding from just automating payroll, it has been shown that speeding up invoicing to customers and clients, supports quicker payment. A quick way to do this is to implement automated invoicing. Systems will do the chasing for you as well, so you don’t have to worry about chasing those late bills.
Continuous improvement
You can always do better and improve on decisions or approaches to challenges within your small business. The key is to reflect and learn from everything you do so you are able to be confident you and the team grow with the business.
If you put in place strong financial and operational processes, it will put you in good stead for your business to thrive, and you will be able to face any challenge head on.