How To Spend Less Time in Admin Tasks and More Time on Growing Your Business

When you own a business, you treat it as if it were your child: you’re proud of it and want to see it thrive. As in life, chaos may quickly arise, but this time, it happens when you don’t prioritise admin tasks properly, use automation, and provide proper employee training. At some point, you might feel like you’re not running your business anymore, but the business is running you.

Poor admin task management is often to blame for business disorganisation and stagnation. Administrative duties are frequently viewed as a distraction, but you know you can’t shove them in a corner and return to them when you have time (likely, never).

No one likes administrative work, so here are three must-dos to help ease this process—and profitably.

Help Customers Pay You Faster

Some businesses with huge potential face obstacles like the high number of debtor days. While it’s not rocket science that customers might overlook or pay important invoices too late, it’s correctable.

Here’s a not-so-surprising secret to prosperous businesses: getting paid by their customers takes little time, and they don’t struggle with cash flow gaps. Their issued invoices are paid in a maximum of 45 days (which ideally should happen in your business, too), and both parties spend less time on administrative duties while focusing more on scaling their businesses. How to do the same?

Well, by measuring the number of days it takes to get paid by your customers. A debtor days calculator simplifies this task for you and enables you to track a customer’s level of risk to determine how healthy the collaboration is. 

To reduce your debtor days, close cash flow gaps. When customers are reminded before payment is due and are aware of the late payment fees, which should preferably be automatically calculated, they act faster.

The better you understand your clients’ risk limits and the more involved you are in receiving their money, the better you can avoid going into debt collection.

Manage AP Better

Accounts payable (AP) is a high-stakes responsibility. Every business has to pay what it owes, and while you’re likely aware of this, you may find it burdensome to keep up with bills without spending ages on such a dull (but crucial) admin task.

One of the easiest ways to improve your accounts payable process is to eliminate paper invoices and move to a digital invoicing system. Using digital invoices can help prevent errors, shorten payment time, and streamline your process, saving time and money. Faster payments help you avoid late fees and put you in the good graces of partners.

Just like giving customers a heads up on their invoices helps you receive your money faster, setting up reminders for payments with all relevant information alerts you when payment due dates arrive. Since there’s clarity around your cash flow, you maintain goodwill with suppliers and can manage your cash reserve better. If you don’t have a cash reserve, it’s time to build one.

Invest In Your Staff

Development and training should be a top priority if you want to rely on your employees to manage various admin tasks. While anyone can carry out some simple admin duties, other complex jobs might pose difficulties for team members that weren’t specially trained.

That’s why investing in continuous training is a must, not only to enable newcomers to gain a solid grasp of their obligations, but also to keep the team up to date with the best administrative practices.

Ensure now that you’re offering the support your employees need to thrive in their roles, to thank yourself later.

Now that you know how to turn time spent on admin tasks into profits, how eager are you to get started?