Monitoring of business changes is extremely important in the business of every company. With the advancement of technology, this task can be conducted using various programs and even smartphones.
It is very important for entrepreneurs to have insight into the company’s operations. There are different ways that large and small businesses can keep up with business changes. Large entrepreneurs can use the professional help of paid accounting programs that have all the functionality they need to run their businesses successfully.
While small entrepreneurs, for whom every cost is important in the beginning, can use free programs with a smaller but necessary number of functionalities that can help a small entrepreneur maintain a business. Small entrepreneurs have the option of using the Microsoft Excel tool, with which they can organize an Excel workbook with which they have insight into incoming and outgoing invoices and the amount of value-added tax (VAT) they must pay for a given month (if they are in the VAT system).
Such an approach does not take a lot of time for a small entrepreneur, and most importantly, it has a free solution to keep up with the company’s operations. In practice, all small entrepreneurs have their own authorized bookkeeping service, but it cannot always provide the entrepreneur with the information he needs for his business, and the entrepreneur has to manage independently in order to get the necessary information.
This is why the idea of an automated application has appeared, which will help the entrepreneur in tracking incoming and outgoing invoices, employees, offers, business plans, and reports.
One other such idea is accounts payable automation. Ever since it has been used, automation of the accounts payable has shown its value. As so many rules and regulations are being changed, an individual or a group of people has just become easily lost in all this.
Basically, a company has to draft tons of documents in order to respond to these ever-increasing requirements, but on the other hand, is unable to guarantee the integrity of its content.
That is why creating archives containing probative value has become one of the greatest benefits automation brings. To see more of its benefits, and how it changes the business landscape, continue reading this article.
1. Cutting down the costs, making the processing faster
Having to handle so much paperwork, both accounting businesses and regular companies are searching for solutions and ways to cut down the cost of their daily operation. Did you know that compared to other administrative tasks being performed inside a business, the one that costs the most is accounting? This process takes as much as 20% of the overall time spent on administration.
This is without other expenses that include storing, and archiving all those documents, and searching for the appropriate one when needed. These consume an average of 2.50£ when you calculate the time one has to spend in the storage rooms searching for the document.
All these expenditures can be minimized by 70% just by digitalizing invoices. Moreover, going digital will influence so many other tasks going automatic, which will make the investment for automation pay off very quickly. On top of everything already said, the processing cycle can be improved greatly.
Naturally, to make the most out of the automation process, one needs to choose the right software, and there are several criteria to consider regarding this. Firstly, you want it to be functional – to perform as many tasks as possible, from saving documents of different formats, archiving them, etc.
Secondly, you want to have the best technology at your disposal, for example, a cloud-based one that enables access from anywhere. Thirdly, practicality – as it needs to be easily handled by your employees. You don’t want them to get lost in the process. And finally, you want one you can actually afford.
2. Saving valuable time
With automation, you not only save time but can also prevent errors in your workflow. Data entry errors can be eliminated through automation, document organization errors and filing problems can be corrected, and there is no risk of someone missing an important document that arrives in the inbox or by email. With automation, each task is handled immediately, and data is transferred as it appears in the file or document without the risk of typing errors.
Automation can effectively connect multiple teams in your company and reduce or eliminate bottlenecks in your workflow. When multiple teams or employees must work together on one larger task, each time a task is handed off to another team, there is an opportunity for delays and errors.
If you can automate some tasks in your workflow and eliminate those bottlenecks between teams, then you can get things done faster and with more precision. Additionally, this can improve team morale as there will be no idleness or frustration with the process and how other team members can play a role in the process.
Automation of any process inside a business is the future. Perhaps its biggest benefit is that you enable employees to actually do the work you hired them to do. Let’s imagine that you have a sales force that needs to contact customers, establish relationships and then enter sales into the system.
Every minute they spend entering order data is a minute they’re not connecting with customers and growing your business. You can’t automate relationship building, but you can make it easier for your employees to do their best work with the help of workflow automation.
Recent research suggests that automation could help employees save as much as 2 hours a day, depending on how long their tasks are and how much they have to do during the day!
Now imagine how much more your workers could achieve if they were given an extra two hours of working time to be productive…
