An essential business practice, cost optimisation tends to include tasks such as obtaining the ‘best’ prices and terms for purchases, it can also mean looking at ways to reduce and even eliminate time-costly laborious tasks. Here, we will explore some light bulb moment ways in which technology can be used to drive cost optimisation across an organisation.
Ways of driving cost optimisation across an organisation
Move business and accounting process online: moving business processes and accounts online and/or using dedicated software will inevitably support efficiency and productivity as well as saving time and driving costs down. What’s more, investing in the most appropriate software for your business can also provide team members and key stakeholders with access to KPIs and vital metrics which not only provide an overview of successes and challenges, but also enable forward planning.
Switch to paperless tasks and functions: following on from the point above, going paperless—although it may feel as though it could only lead to insignificant savings here and there—can actually save an organisation up to 60% on the cost of office supplies per employee a month; office supplies such as paper (of course!), pens, postage and mailing expenses.
Reduce manually processing invoices: significant resources are often dedicated to inputting data, tracking down the stakeholders needed to approve the payment, and moving the invoice through the workflow when invoices are processed manually. What’s more, sending and receiving paper invoices via a postal service can add an extra few days or even weeks to the process as a whole. As such, switching to an invoice automation software or tool can save valuable time, employee resources and, of course, significantly reduce DSO.
Track the date an invoice was sent to a client: for legal organisations, the sending out of invoices is the responsibility of the Partners or the Partners’ Secretaries. This can be an issue for Collectors as they do not always know if an invoice has been despatched. They can end up losing valuable time chasing an invoice which has not yet been sent to a client. With the CreditForce Despatch Tracking Service we can track when invoices have despatched and use that date to drive workflow.
Automate communication with customers: regular and consistent communication with customers and key stakeholders is vital to brand reputation, customer satisfaction and even help to drive new business and sales. However, sending and replying to emails takes time, time that can be dedicated to alternative and potentially higher value tasks. There are multiple emails during the accounts receivable process—such as sending out reminder letters and statements—that can be easily automated and still make a positive impact, making email automation can be one of the most valuable changes you can make.
Invest in the right collections software
One of the most effective way of driving cost optimisation across an organisation is to invest in the right collections & working capital management software such as CreditForce—widely considered to be the most effective collections management system on the market today.
CreditForce offers robust software that can help your finance department measure WIP and A/R performance, a fully automated system to optimise cashflow with business intelligence reporting and analysis.
To find out more about CreditForce please click here or request a demo.