It is crucial to keep tabs on how you spend money. Tracking your expenses is the first step in financial management. It seems tough at first, but you will get used to it over time. It is important to account for every penny that goes into your business. Tracking your expenses enables you to know your financial state. Moreover, it enables you to identify financial issues and set the right objectives. You won’t know you are overspending until you start tracking where your money goes. Is it possible to track your business expenses? The answer is yes. Here are steps to help you track your business expenses.
Technology has made tracking business expenses easy. You can use expense tracking software to track all your expenses. The good thing with using this software is that you can refer to it later when you are reviewing your annual expenses. If you don’t have the time to calculate and recall all the things you bought this year, technology can do the job for you.
Set up a business bank account
It is important to separate your personal funds from your business. It will allow you to know when there are spending issues and come up with solutions. Moreover, having a business account enables you to keep records for tax purposes. Mixing business and personal funds is risky because you may spend business money on personal issues and vice versa. Furthermore, it is difficult to distinguish personal funds from a business if they share the same account.
Keep receipts
Have a file for business receipts. You may forget to include certain expenses in the system, and receipts help to track them. Keeping receipts will also help you to keep track of how much you have spent in a financial year.
Note expenses
There are plenty of tools you can use to track your expenses. One of them is Google Calendar, which you can use to note down everything you buy. You can also set up reminders to help you avoid late payments and fines.
Hire a professional
If you are busy or don’t fancy tracking business expenses, hire a bookkeeper. You could be willing to do the work yourself, but you are engaged with other things. Hiring a bookkeeper is ideal because the person is skilled in doing an excellent job. You don’t need to hire a permanent bookkeeper. Instead, hire on a contract basis and have the person come to your office once a month to go through your invoices and receipts. Working with a professional will save you money in the long run because you need proper records for your business to run efficiently.
Track expenses immediately
If you are not the kind of person who waits until the end month to track expenses, you can do so right away. Moreover, tracking expenses immediately makes it easy to handle tax issues because your file is organized.
Tracking your business expenses promotes growth and discipline. Avoid unexpected expenses to save money. Be accountable for how you spend money, and your business will thrive. Don’t be discouraged when you overspend. Instead, keep tracking your expenses so that you know areas to change.
Improve Customer Experience Without the Hefty Costs in Four Ways
by Nigel Hilton
Reducing business costs is a good way to improve your
savings. But some cost-cutting has its own consequences. If you are not
careful, you may end up reducing business efficiency or lowering your customer
satisfaction rate.
If your goal this year is to boost customer satisfaction
while reducing your costs, there are some ways to achieve that. Consider the
following tips to improve customer experience without having to increase your
expenses:
Consider outsourcing customer support
The kind of customer service you provide for your customers
has a great impact on your client satisfaction rate. But hiring your people
comes with many costs. From recruitment to training and deployment, the costs
can quickly add up. The good news is that you can reduce your costs and still
provide excellent customer service by outsourcing customer relations. By working with a BPO
provider in the Philippines, you can have that peace of mind,
knowing that your customers are in good hands.
Prioritize existing customers
Time and time again, we hear how important customer
retention is. While it is true that customer retention and acquisition should
go hand in hand, we cannot deny the fact that your existing clients are more
important. Old customers are more likely to buy again from you and try out new
products than new consumers. Retaining clients is cheaper than winning new
ones. So make sure that your existing customers are your top priorities.
Ask for feedback before taking another step
One mistake many companies make is making any significant
changes without asking what their customers want in the first place. For
instance, you plan on making some changes to your products. If you do not
consider what your clients need, then you may end up with a new offer that no
customers want. Your customers’ feedback matters; ask and listen to them before
making any changes. This way, you will have a better idea of what you need to
do to increase your sales instead of simply letting your investment go down the
drain.
Improve your frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Are you receiving the same inquiries via phone call from
your customers each day? Then this could mean that many of your customers are
having a hard time getting the information they need. What you can do is to work
on your FAQ section and answer as many questions as you can in a simple and
direct-to-the-point way. Use the language that your customers find easy to read
and understand and get rid of irrelevant answers. By improving your FAQ section
on your website and making it easier for site visitors to find answers to their
questions, you can improve their satisfaction rate without hurting your budget.
When reducing business costs, make sure to check if there
are risks involved. There are times when cost-cutting strategies can stop you
from keeping up with your clients’ expectations. Consider the pros and cons
before making a decision. You do not need to spend more just to keep your
clients happy.
Are you unsure about issues relating to IT systems and their security? If so, and you’re running a business, you need to get help and start making changes. Businesses are increasingly being targeted by hackers and cyber criminals looking to steal money or extort businesses. It’s a threat that can’t be ignored any longer; so many businesses have already fallen victim to these kinds of attacks. Here’s how to make your business’s IT setup more secure than it currently is.
Limit Access Carefully
First of all, you should think about who has access to your business’s systems and the most sensitive files and documents you have. If you let anyone see them, this increases the chances of a security breach or leak, which is obviously not what you want. That’s why you should limit access and ensure only the most experienced and trusted members of the team have access to sensitive data.
Ramp Up Password Protection
Password security is such a basic thing and maybe that’s why its importance is so often overlooked. If you want to make sure your business and its IT setup are secure, you need to make sure you have the strongest possible passwords in place. Change them regularly and ensure they’re not obvious or predictable in any way. It’s something that still trips up so many businesses.
One great way to make sure your business’s security needs are properly taken care of is to use a managed service provided by a company like www.syscomm.ca. As long as they offer good security services, it’ll take a lot of pressure off you because you won’t have to worry about that; another company full of experts will be taking care of it for you. Sometimes, it’s best to leave these things to the experts.
Offer Better Training to Employees
Your business is only as safe and secure as your employees make it, and that’s something you’ll have to keep in mind. By offering your employees better training, you’ll be able to make sure they understand what they need to do in order to keep the business secure in a wide range of situations. And it’s up to you to provide that training.
Get Ethically Hacked
Getting hacked is what you’re trying to avoid, and one of the best ways to avoid a real hack is to have a false one carried out. An ethical hack is when you hire someone or a company to hack your business, without doing anything dangerous to it, in order to see where your current weaknesses and flaws are so they can be corrected. It’s definitely worthwhile.
Your business can’t afford to take any risks when it comes to security. These days, there are so many threats and potential problems out there that you have to be aware of and take steps to mitigate. That all starts with the kinds of security steps we’ve discussed above, so make the most of them.
There is something so soul-warming about cooking great food for the people you love. Dishing up brand new recipes that you have learned, or old family favorites. Watching the faces of happy eaters enjoying the flavors and care that you put into the food.
Over time there might be a creeping feeling that actually this is what you should be doing for life. This should be your business. Watching Chef and then Burnt to get an idea of the stress, and some of the other aspects of running a kitchen.
When you think about it, the local eateries have been in business for years, and there are family establishments around the world that have been open for hundreds of years.
So maybe it is your turn. But what does it take to get a restaurant running?
There are very few if any businesses that don’t do better with a solid plan in place. When it comes to the food industry, there will be a lot more detail about things like the safety of your customers, kitchen staff and restaurant permits and licenses that you’ll need to be able to trade.
There isn’t just one style of restaurant either. Concept restaurants, fusions, modern, a premium all need a different pricing structure and a different plan to match it.
Think about why people will come to eat your food, and what they will pay for it.
Equipment
While we can get by in the home kitchen with some basic things, the equipment you are going to need in a restaurant is somewhat amplified. In order to cater for potentially hundreds of people a day, you have to think bigger. And bigger usually means more costly. Here are some basics that you need to factor in:
Glassware and barware
Cold storage to keep all of your produce fresh
Silverware – the front of house ones, tablecloths, napkins, placements
Utensils in the kitchen – industrial kitchen ones – steel most often for durability
Pots and pans – ones to suit your intended menu
Table, chairs, interior decor
Ovens, grills, fryers, sous vide, vacuum packing, microwaves and more
Signage
And that only covers the very basics of what you are going to need. Not only that, but they will need to suit the style of place you are trying to create. You can get a better idea by actually sitting in a restaurant for a meal and paying attention to what is going on around you.
Team
The team you have in place will need to be skilled and ready for the hectic nature of the service industry. While it doesn’t hurt to have some people who don’t have any experience at all, you’ll need to provide training and guidance. Typically kitchen staff is passionate, and they put everything into their work. The service staff is quick and efficient too. Take your time to build a team, and make sure they have met numerous times ahead of the opening, and had plenty of practice. A soft opening for all of the friends and family is usually a great idea.
The restaurant business is alive and vibrant with so much to explore, and having the right team, and the most comfortable space for your customers will see your way to success.
When we build a machine for a select purpose, careful engineering application is essential. Engineers are commonly focused on two things, first the ability to allow the machine to conduct said purpose, and secondly to achieve that in the easiest and most efficient manner possible. Yet when it comes to structuring the machine of our business enterprise, it can often be that leaders with integrity feel that conveniences are a shortcut and a waste of time, despite how effective they can make that firm.
Of course, to some extent doing things ‘the right way, not the quick way’ is essential. For instance, those calling into your firm will expect a human response rather than just a continual auto-generated set of answers. We do need to structure our enterprise with a little soul, after all.
That being said, some business conveniences you can put in place both help you save time, increase productivity, and actually help you grant your audience more value. These conveniences are that which we fondly apply the label of being ‘worth their weight in gold’.
But what are these conveniences? Let’s explore that together:
IT Managed Services
IT managed services, especially provided by services such as Fidelis, Inc. can be worth its weight in gold. From structuring your business phone systems to software to network cabling, ensuring that you’re completely on top of your digital infrastructure equips you for the informational highway and maintenance accessibility and protection you need to take care of. This allows you to become a strong player in 2020, a firm with confidence and potential helping it every step of the way.
Reputational Repair
When your business suffers a reputational knock, it’s important to try and restore that reputation, or if not, at least stabilize it. For instance, an incompetent chef in a restaurant may find that one mistake leads to someone suffering food poisoning, and word of that can spread through a community for long after said chef is fired, even if you have consistently gained perfect hygiene marks since then and have tightened your practice and vetting of employees. Reputational repair and PR services that help you schedule your relaunch with compassion and the might of social media can help you gain another chance in this direction, and that works for any business.
Branding Specialists
Sometimes it’s not what you offer, but how you offer it that draws people in. Of course, it’s important to curate subtance in the life of your business, but it can also be tremendously important to use branding specialists that offer you a chance of understanding just what value you hope to promote as a firm, and from that point on what direction you should lead in. If you can approximate that in the best sense, you have quite a strong chance of success going forward.
With this advice, we hope you can build the business conveniences that are routinely worth their weight in gold. In this light, you’ll structure an ever-improving approach curating and promoting your value.
Recent Comments