sjsmith.com.au - blog

Time is Money

At the risk of sounding like your grandma, things have sure changed since I first started a business! When we first started I used to do the typing on a machine with a one page memory. We received cheques in the mail from customers and we paid suppliers by cheque, which had to be physically taken to the bank to be deposited.  When we had our first payroll, it was done manually, with hand written payslips and paid in cash that had to be withdrawn from the company account, counted into envelopes and signed for by staff when they received it.

These days nearly everything is automated.  We get paid electronically by customers and we pay suppliers the same way.  Payroll is done on the office computer and sent electronically to the bank for same day processing or it can be post dated to be paid later.  Staff are emailed their payslips as well as any memos.  You can also automate some of your social media.  Do a batch of Facebook posts and schedule them for timed release over the next week or month.  Find a program to automate your Instagram posts for release.

If you’re just starting out, you may feel your not ready for automation yet.  Let me suggest that the sooner you start to incorporate it, the better.  What all of this automation has done is save massive amounts of time.  Time saved in having to physically to go to the bank or to post cheques to people.  Manually calculating payments to staff and suppliers is done by our accounting software and then sent straight off to the bank for processing.  This not only allows me to save time in my own business but it means there’s no longer a wait for cheques to come in and then another wait for cheques to clear once deposited (which used to take up to 7 working days).  The faster the money gets to your account the better and the more time you save, the more money you save.

When you first start automating your systems it can be scary.  Have you set it up right? Are payments being processed properly? How long is it taking for payments to be processed by your bank.  Think about can you batch payments together.  Are there aspects of staff management you can automate?  The more time you can save on some of the more mundane aspects of your business the more you can focus on building your business.  Trust me when I tell you that the more you can automate in your business, the more money you can save.

Till next time,

Sarah-Jane X

Click Here to join up for our mailing list to be kept up to date with our latest news.