The modern business landscape is highly competitive, which means that as a business leader, you need to ensure that your organisation runs as efficiently as possible.
While aspects such as customer onboarding and satisfaction are important, it’s also crucial that you streamline and enhance internal processes as well.
These internal processes, such as accounting, can be time-consuming for your staff, which can take them away from their customer-facing duties.
Many small businesses spend as much as 15 hours per week on financial administration tasks, which takes a significant chunk of your working hours away from the practical complexities of running a company.
Still, accounting and proper financial management are vital. As such, businesses need to find a happy medium, where they spend only as much time as necessary on accounting.
That means working out how to ensure that your business’s accounting and financial management practices are as efficient as possible.
Here are some practical ways to start streamlining your organisation’s accounting processes and ensuring that your team only spends as much time as is necessary on them.
Have Your Existing Processes Audited
Before you throw out your entire accounting process, you should review your current practices to see what works and what doesn’t. You can then enhance your current accounting processes rather than starting completely from scratch. Price Bailey specialises in audit and assurance services, so you can understand the full accounting process from start to finish and work out what needs to be changed. Using their expert services will save you time and ensure that you get an accurate overview of what’s being done and what aspects of your accounting processes need to remain the same for compliance reasons.
Bring As Much In-House As Possible
Using outside accountants for regular accounting tasks is useful when you run a small business, but as you grow, you should consider bringing as many of these tasks in-house as possible. This approach will save your organisation time and money, as you won’t be having to go back and forth with someone outside of your company who has other clients to attend to. Some specialist skills, such as major audits or compliance issues, can be dealt with by outsourced experts, but mundane tasks, such as entering data and managing databases, can be undertaken in-house to save time and improve efficiency.
Find The Right Tech
Technology can be a great way to save time in the accounting process. If your business still undertakes most of its task manually and offline, then consider investigating automated small business accounting software that can save your team time and effort. These tools can also reduce the chances of errors and make it easier for your company to comply with relevant rules and regulations. Many of these software products can be integrated into your existing systems and are intuitive, so you’ll have to spend minimal time and effort learning about them and integrating them into your accounting process.
Improving efficiency in your business is crucial in 2022, but vital departments such as accounting can be challenging. Use these tips to make the process more straightforward and drive your company towards greater efficiency this year and further ahead.
