ADMINISTRATIVE TIPS

 As the age of an organization adds on, it’s obvious the organization starts focusing more on sustainability, growth, and expansion. If we take a closer look at the most successful organization in the world we come to realize, the root of their sustaining success lies in the proper guidance of their administration from the very beginning. One of the main problems impacting most small businesses today is poor administration. A business owner once told me “I don’t run a large enterprise so why do I need to waste my time implementing administrative tips?” Sounds fair enough but what we can clearly notice here is his question is completely neglecting the real potential of his business.

Do you have a group of people working for you? Are you into sales of any product or service? Do you browse the web regularly searching for available loans and grants? Do you want your business to eventually scale? If yes then these effective administrative tips are for you which will help in streamlining your business. 

Time-Saving Administrative Tips for Small Business Owners.

Implement Process Automation to Avoid Repeating Tasks.

Businesses are always searching for ways to make business processes more and more efficient and effective. For that many new technological tools are emerging. These tools work well for tasks that are predictable and repetitive. We can notice many of such tools being used in most of the organizations today like many accounting software which are pretty simple to use.  We just need to ensure our inputs are correct. By using accounting software we can automate repeating accounting tasks. Business Process Automation can make a considerable difference in conducting business activities efficiently and smoothly by standardizing business processes, reducing errors.

A great tool for automation is Zapier. Zapier is an easy automation application designed for busy people. It integrates with other apps to create “zaps” that handle repetitive tasks. The great news is that the few versions are very useful and include up to 100 processes per month, including zaps for Emails, Zoom, Google Docs, and other everyday applications. 

Organize your company’s effective payment terms and policies.

If we have not organized our company’s payment terms and policies well that clearly means we are not communicating effectively about, when do we expect payment from customers and clients, the preferred method of payment, and the consequences of late payment. Miscommunication is bound to cause misunderstanding. That’s not the place; any business would want to be in.  So, it’s better to be upfront about payment terms, policies, and implications for late payments.  Answering invoice queries and managing tight cash flow caused by late payers becomes time-consuming and is one of the stressful tasks.

 Organizing and putting in place effective payment terms and policies will help in the long run. We need to ensure that this is outlined in our agreements and signed by our customers. Most online invoicing tools send automated reminders for overdue invoices that provide a link to easy payment to settle the amount due. Here is an informative article for you The best invoicing software of 2020 to help streamline your business.

Use Time Management Matrix and Time Management Software to Prioritize Tasks.

Whether large or small every business must complete tasks that are required to run the business daily. They have specified deadlines to finish their work. Hence, to be efficient we must prioritize and implement Time Management Matrix to optimize efficiency and increase productivity. 

The Convey Time Management Matrix has been around for many years. It helps to identify tasks of higher priority and tasks that are less important. As a rule of thumb, higher priority tasks should be done even if they are the most difficult. This ensures that we are focusing on tasks that will impact our business. We can make use of free Time Management tools like Click Up,  Trello, Things, Any.Do, Monday.com, Microsoft Teams to prioritize tasks.

Hold Fewer meetings.

Effective meetings can play a crucial role for the organization to share new ideas and visions, improve teamwork and promote collaborative culture in the organization. If there are complex problems to be communicated, meetings become essential. With virtual meeting platforms in a place like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Skype Business,  business owners organize shorter, and more effective meetings that focus on specific topics instead of meeting in person for a longer timeframe. The latter may not be as productive due to the pandemic. During this period businesses have been forced to adapt to virtual gatherings, and while they may not have been ideal, it is being reported that less time is being wasted. 

Create an Effective Work Environment.

There is no doubt employees are the most important resource of any organization. If they are provided with an environment where they can tap into their full potential subsequently organization will benefit from it. An effective work environment is a key to motivate employees and keep them engaged. We need to ensure our office space is tidy and well equipped as it positively impacts their attitude and performance. This is as cost-effective as things like setting up effective workstations, creating a filing system for customers, vendors, and suppliers help to reduce steps for completing manual tasks. This article gives helpful tips on setting up your office for productivity 

Keep Good Records.

A business depends on information for its functioning. We need to keep good records to withdraw essential information. Hence keeping good records is essential to a successful administration. There are many cost–effective ways to do that. We can start this by following steps like going paperless to save time on printing and organizing hard documents, backing up our data. We can take advantage of many technological tools to manage our records.  A cloud storage software like Dropbox provides great options for operating paperless, storing files, and keeping track of versions. Dropbox gives 2.5G of free storage with their FREE version. 

Invest in training and development.

Training and development activities can catalyze the performance of employees and increase their productivity and creativity. These activities are quite crucial to the success of a small business. Training the management team, as well as the staff is a very important factor for the growth of our business and reducing the learning curve timeframe. The SBA provides various free training courses for small businesses that can be used as a great resource for training. Moreover, it also helps in identifying ways of implementing time-saving methods for management and staff.

Review and Refine.

Always be on the lookout for the latest procedures and systems that have become outdated and can no longer function effectively. Review new processes and Refine your business.