Accounting is full of tedious, repetitive tasks, but as you know, each carries a ton of weight for the success of your business.
As your business grows, you’ll be faced with more decisions, all while you’re doing what you can to save time and money in any way possible.
With so many moving pieces, speed and efficiency become the holy grail for your business.
Bottom line: When you know your systems are working quickly and accurately, you can focus on what matters most to you, actually running your business.
Ways to achieve speed and efficiency
Speed and efficiency may seem elusive, but systems do exist that are proven to work. These aren’t exclusive to large businesses with endless resources, as it might seem. Rather, they’re accessible, cost-effective, and practical for even a small operation.
Automation
Automation is the root of speed and efficiency. It eliminates manual work. Manual work doesn’t only cost you time and extra work hours simply because it’s manual. By nature, you have a greater risk of error when tasks are manual, which may take time and money to fix.
Simple truth: In manual processes, you have more opportunities for people to make a mistake.
This risk may even rise for the simplest of tasks because simple, repetitive, monotonous activities become mind-numbing to humans, who naturally prefer work that stimulates their minds.
Automation also supports your efforts to be more efficient by keeping everything in one place and easily accessible. You no longer have to access multiple systems to aggregate financial data. With automation software, you house it in one place and reports automatically pull required figures from other financial documents to stay always up-to-date.
This allows you to connect your goals to your financial data and track performance in real-time.
Your up-to-date data will benefit you when tax time rolls around by making sure everything you need is ready and available.
Standardized processes
The benefits of standardizing processes are well-documented. A study published in the Business & Information Systems Engineering by researchers in the Netherlands found that standardization of business processes led to significant improvements in:
- Expenses
- Businesses that implemented standardized processes reduced costs in the form of wages, raw materials, and services.
- Time
- They saved valuable time that could be put to better use to further the companies’ goals.
- Efficiency
- This led to increased efficiency and the allocation of resources.
- Effectiveness
- Businesses became more effective at what they did, delivering a better product to their customers.
- Quality
- They experienced greater quality control and consistency in the products and services they delivered.
- Responsiveness
- They became more responsive to changes in customer demand, regulation, and other factors that often keep businesses on their toes.
Standardized processes lead to speed and efficiency. Everything is working together to get the job done. Everyone on your team knows their role and the procedure to follow. Due dates for certain documents or activities are clearly defined, so it’s less likely you’ll miss a deadline.
Even though tools will do most of the work for you, your people will still continue to play a vital role, although you’ll be able to do more with less. If you don’t have a tool, a standardized process will also compensate and keep things consistent to a certain extent.
Work with an experienced accounting partner
Partnering with an experienced accounting business will ensure your processes are working for you. They’ll suggest the best tools and help you with the implementation process.
To make sure your business is getting the most speed and efficiency out of the automation and standardized processes you employ, evaluate your accounting partners’ experience in both your industry and small businesses.
Benefits of speed and efficiency in your accounting
Why are speed and efficiency so prized in business? You may have your own answer for that, but here are some benefits you may not have fully considered.
Helps your business grow
Speed and efficiency within your accounting system lead to growth. Your business is “learning” how to run at its best. A business that is running smoothly naturally attracts more customers, cuts costs, and has the ability to position itself for growth in new markets as well as expansion.
Once you’ve nailed speed and efficiency, you’ve likely nailed your process and found tools that work for you, meaning you can shift your attention to growing your business, instead of managing finances.
You’re freeing up staff to spend more time on activities that pay you at higher margins, so you’re cutting costs and working smarter. Growth flows out of this.
Allows you to make quick, data-based decisions
Accurate information at your fingertips means more reliable data-supported decisions. Use the reports and data you’ve been collecting to make real-time adjustments to your finances.
Since all of your information is in one place and you can access it in a timely manner and you have real-time business insights you can use to take advantage of opportunities to drive cash flow.
At the same time, this efficiency allows you to avoid pitfalls that could otherwise cost you significant time and money.
Saves you time and money
With automation and standard processes, you’ll achieve speed and efficiency, ultimately saving you the time you were spending on manual accounting–and fixing (or preventing problems) that wouldn’t exist if accounting were less manual.
When you work with an accounting partner, you can expect to save money because you won’t have to hire a full-time in-house financial expert and you’ll only be paying for the services you need. Now, that’s efficient!
Turn to creditte Chartered Accountants and Advisors. We’ll make sure your business is growing and you are making the right decisions to drive your business forward. Contact us today to learn how we can help you make the most of accounting speed and efficiency.
