Stop Your Business From Becoming An Organisational Nightmare

Any business owner can tell you that running a business isn’t easy, but that it can get a lot harder as the business grows. As you get more people on your team, more customers, and more responsibilities, keeping on top of it all can become an organisational nightmare. But it doesn’t have to. Here, we’re going to look at a few tried and tested methods of staying on top of a business, no matter how much it grows and how complicated it gets.

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Stay on top of accounting

The finances of the business are one of the easiest ways to start looking track if you’re not paying attention. As soon as possible, you want to move away from doing your inventory and accounting on pen and paper, and instead move to accounting software like QuickBooks that can be used to automatically generate the financial reports you need with the only work on your end being a little data input. Accounting software makes it a lot easier to see the specifics of your finances for particular periods or to look at the profitability of certain services and products compared to others in the business.

Make sure you choose the right business structure

Right at the start of the business, you should take a moment to consider which structure you run with. The two most common choices for small businesses are sole proprietorship (aka sole trader or self-employment) and forming a limited company. If you don’t plan to expand and you’re working solely for yourself, registering as self-employed can be simpler. However, registering as a limited company makes it easier to separate personal and professional liability, and it also simplifies your accounting since it requires you to keep personal income and the business accounts separate. Using a formation agent such as – Your Company Formations Ltd can make the process of setting up a limited company much easier. You just have to consider whether or not you plan to grow your business and research the strengths of different structures and how they fit those plans.

Choose the right tools of the trade

Efficiency is the name of the game and to make sure that you can be as productive as you would like to be every single day, you need to take a closer look at where you’re spending the most time. There’s a lot of time-saving software out there, helping with everything from social media marketing to HR and scheduling. Take a closer look at the work you’re doing the most every day and look into investing in the software that can help you automate it or simply get it done much more efficiently so you free up more time in the day.

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Backup everything

Most modern businesses run in large part, if not entirely, on digital devices like PCs, smartphones, and tablets. Over time, you will likely build a large database of documents, files, and paperwork that is valuable if not crucial to the brand. Losing all that data and information could be disastrous, especially if it’s related to the company finances. For that reason, you need to back everything up. For the most crucial documents, like your certificate of incorporation and annual accounts, you should have a paper and a digital copy. Even if files are digital only, you should make use of Cloud backup services like iDrive to make sure that if you ever lose one copy, you still have the other to rely on.

Make a plan for every single day

Do you have difficulty feeling productive at the end of the day? Many business owners have to juggle so many responsibilities and tasks that it’s easy to become bogged down in busy work. However, starting the habit of prioritising your work every day can help with that. Many people put together a to-do list to help with this, but you should go further. Identifying the work you need to get done at some point is the first step, you should also separate them into categories of work that needs to be done right now and work that could be done later or if you happen to find the time for it. Put together a to-don’t list to narrow down how much you expect to get done today. Allot a certain amount of time for each task and put them on a schedule at the start of the day so you can always track whether or not you’re working as productively as you should be.

Declutter

A messy workspace makes for a messy mind. If your desk is cluttered, then it’s easy to be distracted which can damage your productivity. You can declutter not just your desk but your mind. If you make it a lot easier to track different projects and responsibilities, you can more easily focus on the task currently at hand. Project management software such as Trello makes it easier to do just that. You can set up a dashboard of different joint and solo projects and quickly track their progress at any time so that they’re not constantly on your mind. It also streamlines communication within the workplace so that you’re not being bogged down by a hundred direct message or email conversations.

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Get a little help

Especially when a business is new and doesn’t yet have the employee base it needs, knowing that you can outsource to freelancers can be a source of great relief for business owners. Even hiring a freelancer for a role as simple as a virtual assistant can help you free up significant portions of the day. Look at freelancing platforms like Upwork, and get some help with the day-to-day busy-work so you have more time to focus on the tasks that are most important.

Organisation is crucial to the success of a business. Having access to accurate information when you need it and being able to continue progressing with your goals instead of getting stuck with busy work all day will ensure that you’re wasting far less time and spending it on the things that will actually help you make money.