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4 Reliable Ways To Reduce Small-Business Expenses
Every penny counts when you’re running a small business. Like larger businesses, you want to grow income while keeping costs down. But you need solutions tailored to your business’ size.
No matter how small your business is, you can take advantage of modern solutions, such as outsourcing and automation, to simplify your business processes. That will save you time and money so you can focus on the things you love about your business.
1) Outsource Wisely
Outsourcing certain business processes can be much more cost-effective than hiring full-time employees. It just doesn’t make sense for many small businesses to have an in-house accounting department or maintain their own databases on privately owned servers. Outsourcing accounts payable and document storage is an effective solution.
If you do need extra hands-on help during certain times of the year, consider reaching out to your local college or business trade school to set up short-term internships. Students will often work for a lower hourly rate than temps, especially if you can work things out so they earn college credits as part of the internship.
2) Control Finances
One of the quickest ways to start losing money is to lose track of your expenses. When you can’t keep on top of your bills, you start getting hit with late payment fees on loans, invoices, and credit card statements.
If you want to keep payments in-house instead of outsourcing, consider using automation to help keep track of things. NextProcess’ system scales to your needs and you only pay for what you use, so it works just as well for small businesses as larger corporations.
3) Purchase Smarter
Bulk pricing looks so good. Buying a thousand pencils or larger quantities of printer ink can drastically drop the price per piece. But will you ever use a thousand pencils? Can you get through the ink before it dries up? You might find that buying just what you need is more cost-effective in the long run.
On the other hand, you might try collaborating on bulk purchases with other small businesses owners. You’ll all need things like pens, paper, printer ink, and staples, so why not form a cooperative alliance and help each other out?
Also, remember to ask suppliers if there’s a small business discount whenever you order. Some companies offer unadvertised discounts or even wholesale pricing, especially on larger purchases like furniture.
4) Go Digital
Let’s think about how much paper you use on a daily or weekly basis. Printing paper forms for your records, receiving paper invoices, sending out paper checks. It really adds up. And much of this paper either ends up in the trash or takes up space in your filing system.
Digitizing as much of your record keeping and payment system as possible saves space, time, and money. Digital document storage is easy to search when you need to find a file. And digital payments are fast, trackable and you save money on printing, paper, and postage costs.
Want to see first-hand all the ways NextProcess can help your small business? Contact us to set up a demonstration. We’ll answer any questions you have and help you get things set up to fill your business’ needs.
