5 Easy Ways to Automate Your Business to Save Time and Money
By Mandy Maas, Your Front eOffice
As a business owner, sometimes it feels like there is not enough time in the day. If you feel overwhelmed with the number of tasks that need to be completed daily, you are not alone.
There are many options to alleviate your workload, regardless of your business’ size. If you want to optimize your business, the first place to start is to decide what tasks you can automate to free up your valuable time and resources.
What is Business Automation?
Business automation is defined as the use of technology to assist in daily business tasks, processes, and projects, with little to no interaction from a business owner. Automating daily and routine tasks can cut operating costs, which is why you will find most business owners utilizing some form of business process automation software in some manner within their business.
Benefits of Automating Your Business
Some benefits of automating your business include:
- Saving time to allow you to focus on more important tasks and projects.
- Increasing productivity by allowing multiple tasks to be handled simultaneously.
- Reducing errors by minimizing human error from paperwork and unexpected employee delays.
- Improving communication, transparency, and quality in team and client management processes.
- Standardizing processes to achieve expected results in multiple processes and systems of your business.
- Scaling your business through efficient client and employee onboarding processes and accommodating increased scopes of work.
- Preparing your business for the financial reporting requirements at tax time.
How to Start Automating Your Business Processes
To determine what type of automation is right for your business, you will need to start by focusing on the routine, daily tasks that consume you and your employees’ time and efforts. Don’t forget to include your whole team! Brainstorming together can help your business improve its internal processes and ensures you don’t overlook any tasks that have potential to be automated.
5 Easy Ways to Automate Your Business
- BOOKKEEPING
We begin our list with one of the most important processes you can automate in your business, and that is your accounting/bookkeeping. Not only does automating your bookkeeping save you time, but it also allows you to be more productive in other important tasks, and securely access and store all your financial data all in one place.
QuickBooks® is one of the most popular accounting automation software on the market and was specifically created for small-business owners. It integrates seamlessly with most major payment processing providers and has invoicing and expense tracking tools that business owners are looking for.
There are numerous processes you can automate your business with just QuickBooks® alone. If you are a business owner using QuickBooks®, and you are interested in finding out more about other processes and workflows that can be automated in QuickBooks®, we can help.
If you are not already using QuickBooks®, click here to find out how QuickBooks® can work for your business.
Our expert team of QuickBooks® ProAdvisors can help you analyze your business and streamline your financial processes. Through a Discovery Session, we can get to know you, your business, and your bookkeeping needs so we can help lay the foundation for clean financials, and find out how we can assist you in automating your financial workflows and routine bookkeeping tasks.
- ACCOUNTS PAYABLE (AP)
Easily manage your cash flow and conveniently pay all your bills online.
Melio is a great software for busy business owners looking for a way to pay bills and manage their cash flow on the go, without spending a huge portion of their budgets on expensive AP software.
Recently, QuickBooks® announced the launch of upgrades for QuickBooks® Online Essentials, Plus, and Advanced. Now you can easily connect to Melio with your QuickBooks® account, and all your business’ bills, vendor details, and payments will automatically sync from your QuickBooks® account to Melio.
- PAYROLL
Transform your payroll experience by eliminating delays and human errors, while securely sharing and storing employee data. We highly recommend Gusto as a payroll automation software that even syncs with your QuickBooks® account. Your employees can easily access their paystubs, and funds for payroll are automatically taken from your business account and process in 2-4 days.
Check out the many benefits of Gusto Payroll Automation here.
- HUMAN RESOURCES (HR)
Enhance your business by using a HR automation software to improve employee productivity, compliance, and growth. Automation helps your business streamline and integrate new processes and allows your employees to focus on more important tasks.
Check out 10 benefits of using a HR software here.
- SALES TAX
You don’t have to burden your business with complex and tedious sales tax compliance. Automating your sales tax can reduce your tax risk by staying up to date with tax rates, product tax rules, and tax laws, while eliminating human error.
Being automated also makes scaling and entering new markets domestically or internationally easier than ever by decreasing the tax complexities that come with growth. Avalara is a helpful automated sales tax software solution for all your sales tax needs, and it connects to QuickBooks® and other inventory software.
Check out how Avalara works here.
CONCLUSION
Although the main benefit of automating your daily tasks is to save your business time, which allows you and your employees to focus on more important tasks, there are many benefits to automating your business’ processes. Concentrating on automating and standardizing your internal processes sets your business up for success, by allowing you to spend time working on your business and not in it.
Your Front eOffice provides full-service accounting for all types of industries. We are passionate about helping our clients reach their financial goals through accurate and expert accounting services while providing financial clarity and confidence to small business owners.
If you need help determining what systems and processes your business would benefit from automating, we can help! YFeO not only offers accounting and bookkeeping services, but we also provide high-level financial reporting and business growth consulting without expanding your team.