Published: April 2nd, 2019 in Business
When your business is growing, sometimes it’s the little tasks that can start to stack up and get on top of you. Even when you delegate some of those tasks to your employees, the result is that their time is now compromised – whatever they were doing before that they were so good at is something they don’t have as much time to do now because they’re doing what you used to do as well with no extra time.
By systematising your business, you can structure your working day and your colleagues’ working days so that there’s less time spent on unproductive tasks and more time spend finding additional profit within the business by eliminating the need to correct mistakes, accidental task duplication, stock over-ordering, or more.
Here is TFMC’s top tops for systematising your business, but first…
Why systematise?
Systematising your business requires that you look at everything that you do through a certain lens – a more critical eye. Every procedure that takes place should be viewed as a process with inputs, tasks, solutions, and outcomes. Once you see your business in this perspective, you can easily identify where you are the least productive.
Systematising your business allows you to put those monotonous tasks on autopilot. Each time that you need to chase up unpaid invoices or file away documents, you simply need to follow a set routine that will deliver the most efficient results.
Systematising also gives a lot of power to your employees. Instead of having a manager looming over them 24/7, they will instead have a set of specific procedures to follow. This gives them more control over their own tasks which decreases their dependency on management. And the management team (also known as “you”) will have more time to allocate to other tasks because they are not answering questions every 30 seconds.
How you can systematise
Here are our 4 favourite ways to systematise your business for an increased productivity boost:
Find systems that are already producing the desired result
The chances are that you have already systematised certain elements of your business and you don’t know it yet. Look for those daily tasks that you already have a routine that you already follow. Ask yourself the questions about what would make the customer experience better and examine whether what you’re doing now helps and doesn’t hinder. For example;
- Can you respond to your client’s questions within half an hour?
- Can you recover invoices in under a month?
- Can you guarantee your service is completed within a certain time frame?
Deconstruct what goes into making what you’re already doing well and then replicate them across those tasks you have decided that you do less well at.
Identify time consuming tasks
The whole reason that you want to systematise your business is to become more productive. You can pour hours into a task that doesn’t generate a worthwhile level of profit – sometimes any profit. Finding out what these tasks are is imperative to increasing the efficiency of your business. Once you have identified what it is that you are spending most of your time on, you now have a procedure that needs systematising.
One way to help identify these procedures is to have your employees document what they do in a day and how long it takes them.
Embrace technology
There are a whole host of different time tracking apps that are available to you online for free. Making use of these tools can help your employees track their timekeeping, and in turn, help you to identify productivity bottlenecks within your business.
In addition to timekeeping software, you could also invest in an appointment keeping software. Little things like having to keep track of your schedule manually will waste time in your day and are more likely to lead to mistakes. This is time that could be better used elsewhere.
Systematise your accounting with TFMC
Bookkeeping is one of those tasks that many business owners dread. However, this can be systematised too. We recommend that you incorporate a bookkeeping package, like Xero, into your company.
Being able to access a constantly-updated overview of your finances at any time online will allow you to have the information you need to make the decisions that can save your business money.
By taking your accounting to the cloud, you can save time both during your day and especially at the end of the tax year. If you would like to discuss how we can streamline your accounting matters and our hints and tips on making more by doing less with systematisation, get in touch with our team.
A smoother, better business
In our experience, it takes most businesspeople, even the most naturally talented ones, up to five years with the sheer complexity of running even a simple business. Successful entrepreneurship not only requires the ability to know what needs to be done in a business but to structure that business in such a way that there’s as little friction as possible. Friction costs money, upsets customers, and demoralises staff.
The most successful business people are successful because they have all the information they need to hand to make sensible decisions on consolidating and growing their company. We strongly encourage you to take the steps in this article, especially the tips on bookkeeping and accounting. If you know how much money is going to be available to you in 1 week, 1 month, or even 3 months’ time, this gives you a foresight into what your business needs from you and your colleagues that most entrepreneurs, sadly, never have with their own companies.
Get in touch with our team on 0800 470 4820 or email info@tfmcentre.co.uk.
