15 of the best administrative tricks for financial professionals and managers
Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2024 5:10 am
rding to a study by Sage, businesses around the world say that 71% of their administrative time is spent on accounting and payment processing tasks, including issuing invoices and tracking payments.
Freeing up a small portion of that time could be transformative. Finance professionals could spend that extra time on proactive business advisory functions , such as creating a more satisfying and stimulating work experience.
Here are 15 ways to put it into practice.
1.Save time by not billing
Okay, that may be an exaggeration. Issuing invoices is inevitable.
But you don't have to personally take on the task of doing this yourself or your team. Reclaim valuable time by offloading this task to sales or marketing staff using your greece email list accounting application. Most accounting software packages include this feature.
Make sure you incorporate this requirement into your sales or marketing processes. Most accounting applications work on mobile devices such as phones and tablets.
This makes it possible to issue an electronic invoice in a matter of minutes and even do so on-site, in front of the client, to avoid subsequent discussions about whether the invoice has been received.
The other advantage of this option is that it completely eliminates billing delays. Delays in receiving an invoice can create confusion with the client and lead to delays. After all, if you don't care enough about a payment to issue an invoice quickly, do you really care about getting paid promptly?
2. Outsource tasks within the company itself
A key trick to saving time and effort with any service-oriented function, such as finance, is to delegate as many tasks as possible that do not require the expertise or knowledge of professionals in that department.
Let's look at another example. Virtually anyone can be responsible for tracking outstanding payments. So what if the invoice issuer , for example the salesperson, does it as part of their regular job?
After all, the salesperson won't receive the commission until the payment clears, so it's in their interest to have it processed quickly.
You'll want to frame any conversations with this in mind. Again, your accounting software should have a feature that alerts them when a standard invoice or an electronic invoice is due .
3. Good budgets = less time spent on billing
You and your team can save a lot of time when creating invoices by ensuring that your company's sales and marketing staff are doing their best to create accurate, detailed quotes.
All you need to do is transfer the data from the quotes area to the invoices area in your accounting software , or at most copy and paste the quote details into the invoice form.
As we have mentioned before, there is no doubt that the golden rule would be that the sales or commercial staff themselves would be responsible for converting the budget into an invoice, to avoid the involvement of the financial department.
Freeing up a small portion of that time could be transformative. Finance professionals could spend that extra time on proactive business advisory functions , such as creating a more satisfying and stimulating work experience.
Here are 15 ways to put it into practice.
1.Save time by not billing
Okay, that may be an exaggeration. Issuing invoices is inevitable.
But you don't have to personally take on the task of doing this yourself or your team. Reclaim valuable time by offloading this task to sales or marketing staff using your greece email list accounting application. Most accounting software packages include this feature.
Make sure you incorporate this requirement into your sales or marketing processes. Most accounting applications work on mobile devices such as phones and tablets.
This makes it possible to issue an electronic invoice in a matter of minutes and even do so on-site, in front of the client, to avoid subsequent discussions about whether the invoice has been received.
The other advantage of this option is that it completely eliminates billing delays. Delays in receiving an invoice can create confusion with the client and lead to delays. After all, if you don't care enough about a payment to issue an invoice quickly, do you really care about getting paid promptly?
2. Outsource tasks within the company itself
A key trick to saving time and effort with any service-oriented function, such as finance, is to delegate as many tasks as possible that do not require the expertise or knowledge of professionals in that department.
Let's look at another example. Virtually anyone can be responsible for tracking outstanding payments. So what if the invoice issuer , for example the salesperson, does it as part of their regular job?
After all, the salesperson won't receive the commission until the payment clears, so it's in their interest to have it processed quickly.
You'll want to frame any conversations with this in mind. Again, your accounting software should have a feature that alerts them when a standard invoice or an electronic invoice is due .
3. Good budgets = less time spent on billing
You and your team can save a lot of time when creating invoices by ensuring that your company's sales and marketing staff are doing their best to create accurate, detailed quotes.
All you need to do is transfer the data from the quotes area to the invoices area in your accounting software , or at most copy and paste the quote details into the invoice form.
As we have mentioned before, there is no doubt that the golden rule would be that the sales or commercial staff themselves would be responsible for converting the budget into an invoice, to avoid the involvement of the financial department.