Do You Have the Right Business Systems and Technology to Scale for Success?
If, like most business owners, you’re planning to grow your business, it’s worth investing time in researching the business systems and technology you’ll need to scale up with the business as it grows. So, implementing the right business systems before a growth phase makes sense so that the system supports the growth, rather than having to change and learn new ones during a time of labour-intensive expansion.
We’ve seen businesses decline because of growing too quickly without having the systems and processes in place to support the growth. So don’t let that be you!
At On The Money Melbourne Bookkeeping, we love working with business owners to implement systems that work for you and your business. We’ve also seen many business owners pay for technology that does not, in fact, help them to run the business well. We are interested in helping you to get the right business systems for your business without overcomplicating.
What are Your Business Goals?
If you’re clear about your business goals, it will be much easier to plan how you will achieve them. It’s a simple principle that we see many business owners don’t implement. If you don’t have a comprehensive business plan, then even a one-page business plan allows you to make better business decisions guided by specific objectives outlined in the plan. So what does success look like for you? If you’re not clear on this, how will you know when you have achieved it?
Setting clear goals allows you to celebrate when you reach milestones along the way!
Start with business.gov.au templates if you need to clarify your business aspirations.
Once you are clear about short, medium and long-term plans, it is easier to decide what systems and technology are essential and worth investing in.
What Business Systems Do You Need?
Digital and online systems are built for flexibility, so you can scale up or down with changing business conditions. Digitisation also gives you real-time data, a valuable resource for making operational and financial decisions to help achieve your business goals.
Firstly, you’ll need the best bookkeeping and accounting software for your type of business and industry. Here at On The Money, we are 100% Xero and find that it works for most businesses. Many add-on solutions integrate with Xero, allowing you to customise how you run your business and give you the information you need.
Secondly, you’ll need the best cyber security. Online scams, fraud and hacks are a reality for any business, and you must take steps to protect the integrity of your data and the security of your finances. Your cyber risk management needs to grow along with your business. The bigger your business, the bigger the risk.
Thirdly, depending on the nature of your business, you’ll need systems to manage sales and purchases, staff and rostering, stock control, online ordering, and workflow or production processes. Check out the Xero app store to see the range of add-on products available, or talk to us if you want help sorting out what is suitable for you.
Integrated Business Systems Tools to Consider
Integrated systems will improve efficiency, increase the transparency of your internal processes, save on costs, grow profits, give your clients a better experience of your business, and give you more agility in responding to your market.
It’s all about measurable results and getting valuable data out of your systems so you can keep making intelligent business decisions in response to internal and external conditions.
One of the best solutions you can implement now is to start using optical character recognition technology to extract data from source documents, making your accounts payable process more efficient and accurate. We recommend Dext.
Offering your customers multiple forms of payment such as PayPal, buy-now-pay-later, and online payment makes it easier to get paid on time and is easy to implement to allow for growth. There are even systems that will manage customer payments for you, so you never have to chase a customer for payment again!
Managing jobs and projects is another area where you’ll need the right system to scale up. Whether it’s a greater number of jobs or more complex jobs, using a system to track workflow processes, labour, and other costs of jobs is vital.
You could look at other systems such as inventory management, payroll and HR management, customised reporting or eCommerce.
Great Systems for Business Stability
Set your business up with great systems rather than depending on great people, who may leave. You don’t want to create a bottleneck in your business because the knowledge required to run your business is all in one person’s head, which you only discover after they have left. Documenting your processes into accessible systems benefits your business and staff all around. Bottlenecks can happen with people or processes – and it’s not uncommon for the most significant bottleneck to be with the owner!
What Next?
If you want to grow your business but know your current systems are not serving you well, talk to us about your goals and existing practices and let’s see if we can support you in implementing systems built for success.
On The Money Melbourne Bookkeeping offers comprehensive business keeping – the next evolution of advanced bookkeeping and accounting services. Good business keeping depends on having the right integrated business systems that are flexible enough to grow with you and help you reach your goals.
Check out an earlier article of ours What Happens When Your Business Grows but Your Systems Don’t? This highlights the case of Lush Australia, a company that did not update its payroll systems when it should have, resulting in years’ worth of payroll errors they didn’t realise they were making. It shows the importance of assessing your systems regularly to ensure your technology is up to the job it should be doing.