Small business owners are busy. You cannot afford to waste your time on tasks that generate low ROI for your business. Technology has now advanced to a stage where you can automate several tasks. Best of all, small businesses can now leverage the platforms that once solely applied to enterprises.
You must digitally transform your small business, and the first step is to use technological solutions in important business functions. Here are four areas where technology will save you time and help you focus your energy on tasks that boost profits.
Contract management
How often have you sent PDFs of contracts repeatedly over email to your suppliers and customers? How often have you lost track of these important documents? The typical small business owner stores digital copies of contracts on their computer and struggles to retrieve important information.
Automating several aspects of contract management has its advantages. You can sign contracts faster, manage your contract repository easily and retrieve important contact information when you need it. If a full-blown solution doesn’t appeal to you, use a signature maker to digitally store your signature. You can insert this signature in all of your contracts quickly and securely.
A robust contract management platform will help you organise your contracts across several attributes. Thanks to templated contracts, you can organise documents according to deal size, payout terms and profitability. These metrics will help you pursue better clients and let go of ones that do not serve your goals anymore.
Financial projection
Financial projection platforms used to apply only to enterprises due to their complexity. However, modern platforms scale to businesses of all sizes, and you must leverage the power of financial analytics in your business.
For instance, a good financial management platform will help you project cashflow and working capital levels. You can model different business scenarios, figure out when you need funding and negotiate better prices with your suppliers as a result. There are different degrees to which you can use a financial projection platform.
The most sophisticated ones centralise your expense management and financial information onto a single dashboard. If these features are overkill, you can always opt for lower levels of automation, such as automating invoice creation and delivery. You can create payment collection workflows that deliver reminders to customers before due dates.
Some platforms even alert you to potential supplier discounts if you pay early. Thus, automation might seem expensive at first, but you’ll save money in the long run.
Remote HR
Remote work is here to stay, and you must account for it in your business. Many small business owners think small and hire just local candidates. If you’re living in an area that lacks people with the skills you need, this approach can leave you in a tough spot.
Instead, cast your net as wide as possible and embrace remote work. Naturally, not every position will lend itself well to remote work but look as widely as possible when recruiting for roles that are remote-friendly. For instance, bookkeeping services can be executed remotely, as can marketing functions.
To power these roles, you need an HR platform that supports remote employees. A cloud-based platform will simplify onboarding and payroll management. These systems will also handle compliance and tax issues that make your life much easier.
Again, these platforms look complex on the outside, but they pay for themselves in the long run. Ultimately, they help you recruit the best candidate possible, irrespective of their location.
Security
Every business is online these days, and cybersecurity is a business pillar, not an add-on. Your systems store a ton of sensitive supplier, financial and customer data. A data breach caused by a malicious attack will put you in violation of several data privacy laws. Not only could you face damage, but your brand image will also suffer.
Cybersecurity platforms scale to almost every business these days. While the industry’s jargon and technology might seem intimidating, most platforms do a great job of onboarding customers and helping them automate basic tasks.
The good news is that as a small business owner, you don’t need highly sophisticated resources. A cloud-based platform will help you automate routine checks and deliver security alerts when there’s a problem. You can lean on the security services the platform offers and correct any issue that exists.
Often, these platforms include a systems audit as a part of their offering. You can have an expert look at your systems and validate them for security. The result is a robust security posture that keeps your data safe and your business protected always.
Digital is the way forward
Small business owners must embrace technology to remain competitive in the market. Thanks to technology scaling to offer solutions to every business, it has never been easier to leverage automation to simplify common business tasks and boost profits.
