5 reasons why frequent bookkeeping can save your business money – Celebrating IWD 2017
It’s International Women’s Day and we are proud to say that our company is managed by two successful women: Karen Garrattley and Diane Middleton We believe that women around the world should be able to start their own business and thrive. To help businesses, and as a celebration, we thought we’d share some of Karen and Diane’s business knowledge to help you save money.
Ensuring that your day to day bookkeeping is kept up to date can literally transform the way your business operates. By doing this you can collate meaningful data that will help you move forward. It’s essential to have regular meetings to review your finances.
Here’s our 5 reasons why …
- Forecasting
By keeping things up to date, you can see what works well and what doesn’t in your business model. This helps you plan for the future.
Say you’ve introduced a new product and you haven’t sold many units, you can then investigate why. It could just be that it’s currently out of season or it could be that your marketing needs revamping.
Whatever the problem, you at least know that there is a problem and that means you can address it. You will then, in turn, save money because you’ll learn to see patterns and trends and adapt accordingly.
- Staff Performance and Behaviour
With regular bookkeeping, you can monitor who’s claiming for what and when.
This prevents staff members taking advantage like filing personal expenses. If everything is monitored, then it reduces the chance of misconduct.
On the same token this could allow you, to an extent, to monitor staff performance easier.
Here’s an example: Your product didn’t sell very well last month, was it because your sales department didn’t meet their mark? Maybe they need some more training or maybe they are not working efficiently. Either way you can make steps to improve and ultimately help the company to grow.
- Savings
Maybe you rent an office and have dreams of owning your own premises one day?
Maybe you want to reward your staff for working so hard this year?
Whatever your reason for saving, you can’t save anything until you know what’s left in your bank to save. That’s why it’s so important to monitor every penny and pound.
Here’s an example: Say you’d like an office of your own. Using the data from your audits you could create a 3-year plan that estimates how much you’ll have in savings by that point if you keep your profits at the level they are now. This is a great motivator. If you know you can have an office of your own in 3 years, then you’ll work harder because you’ll want to achieve that.
- Avoid Unwanted Costs
Direct Debits are part of our daily life but it can be our downfall. Often we pay what’s owed without much question as we presume the same amount will be taken out every time. This isn’t always the case.
If you notice one of your direct debits has increased, then maybe it’s time talk to your supplier or do a price comparison. Telecoms, insurance and utilities are often the ones to watch as sometimes they automatically renew without you noticing that the price has increased. By the time you notice you could be tied into another 12 or 18-month contract.
There is a solution. Review your direct debits regularly and diarise your contracts renew dates and you’ll reduce your chance of being caught out.
- Staff Retention
As mentioned earlier, bookkeeping reports can help you to understand how well your staff are performing. You may then decide you want to reward them for their hard work.
You could save up and at the end of year reward them with a party, vouchers or whatever you see fit.
If you do substantially well you could even go so far as to give them raise! Rewards improve staff retention and ultimately save you money. Low staff retention is a money waster and happy staff means happy customers and more profits.
If you want to save money and are concerned about your bookkeeping, contact us for a free review: info@cosbookkeeping.co.uk
How will you help support International Women’s Day 2017?
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