A few weeks ago, I created a post called the “8 ways to use technology to be more efficient“. In that post, I outlined some great places to focus your energy to begin making your business more efficient through the use of technology. Since then I have outlined a couple of the topics more in depth (Paperwork Process Automation, Document Management Automation) Taking a little more time to explain the specific uses may really help to allow you to take steps in this direction.
photo credit: Elsie esq.
The third aspect that was described in the original post was automation of recurring tasks. It is amazing how much of our days/weeks/months we spend on doing the same things to keep our businesses running. This is a very key place to look when considering becoming more efficient via automation.
What do you mean?
In almost every business there are tasks that are done either daily, weekly, monthly, etc. It is the exact same task each month, it just is a new month so it has to be done. It could be sending out payment reminder letters, invoices, marketing mailers, thank you notes, running monthly reports, etc. There are so many that it would take more than fingers and toes to count them all. Because there are so many and they are done fairly regularly, they eat into your time and productivity.
Imagine that it takes one employee two hours to complete invoicing. Your company invoices once a week. That employee makes roughly $35 per hour. It is going to cost you over $3,500 per year just to send out invoices! That doesn’t include reminder letters, receipt of payments, taking checks to the bank, or any other tasks.
How does it help?
1. Saves Time and Money
By allowing systems to handle many of the recurring tasks you can save time and money. Because the system automatically generates invoice, your employee that was generating invoices can now be working on getting the checks in the door or maybe even helping to find other efficiencies. With the saved time you are also saving money spent on overtime, potentially postage, and a lot of opportunity cost when the resource is working on other tasks that need to be accomplished.
2. Consistency
No matter how much you would like your invoices to always go out before noon on Monday, something always seems to come up. This won’t be the case once the system is automated. Even if your office is closed for a holiday, snow day, or what ever other kind of day the invoice is going to go out. The delivery of invoices will be consistent.
It’s also always hard to transition when you bring in a new employee and want them to take on sending out invoices. They tend to do things just slightly different than the last person did. An automated systemized approach to this task removes that variance. Because the system does it the same way every week customers can come to expect the specific way that your business operates.
Take a step
Would your business benefit from automation systems to handle recurring tasks for you? How could you utilize this type of technology to make your office more efficient?
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