The old adage is true: time is money. If you or your staff spends valuable time manually moving information from one system to another, STOP! Technology makes life easier! Set a goal to reduce personnel tasks by integrating office applications. You’ll experience results like saving time, improving accuracy and employee satisfaction, not to mention increasing agility.
If you’ve read my other entries in this series, you know that I started with analyzing your processes. This will give you a starting point on which processes can be automated and how. One of the most popular places to start is accounts payable, but your business may have other areas for automation as well.
How do you determine what to automate? Here are some guidelines:
- Automate the easiest processes first. You want a solid ROI, but you don’t want a complicated project. Approval management is frequently something that can be easily automated and save managers a lot of time sorting through emails. Other organizations start with sales or customer service.
- Focus on one thing at a time. Changing processes throughout the company can add stress and impact morale. Take it slowly, prioritize and get it done.
- Look to apps for simple and inexpensive automation projects. Intuit provides a variety of apps that integrate with QuickBooks, including time tracking, expense reporting and receipt tracking.
There are so many solutions to the problems businesses face. Automation can be a big part of those solutions. Drop us a line if you’d like to brainstorm some ways automation can save your business time and money.
