Your business doesn’t have to be in the red in order for you to start implementing cost-saving measures. In fact, provided that it doesn’t come at the expense of your product quality, process efficiency or employee satisfaction, you should always be looking for ways to save money.
The problem is, it can be tricky to know where to look. Bad value doesn’t always announce itself; often, it’s hidden within plain sight, within the normal, recommended operations of a business. It’s a good thing you clicked on this article – below, let’s detail a few simple ways (so simple that you might have never even considered them) that your business can save a little money.
Go Paperless
Paper costs money, as do the supplies involved in printing on it, binding it, storing it and transporting it. But you know what doesn’t cost money: digital text. There has been a significant push in the last couple decades to move things online, but in spite of that many businesses still use paper for a number of processes.
You really don’t need to anymore. Accounting can be completed through a software program and stored either on a local drive or the cloud. Memos, meeting minutes, correspondences, reports, advertising copy, etc. can all easily be finished and disseminated over computers. As this point, paper is just a needless expense.
Lease Your Vehicles
When you use business car leasing in Toronto (or wherever your business calls home,) you pay a monthly fraction of the overall cost of the car. When you lease, on the other hand, your monthly payments are a fraction of the “cost of depreciation”, that is, the value of the car left when the lessee minuses the residual value after the lease term from the retail value.
This translates to major savings. Your monthly cash flow when switching over to leasing is much healthier, allowing you to earmark money to departments that need it. If you’re reticent about leasing, you really shouldn’t be; a business doesn’t need to own its cars, it simply needs to be able to use them. Ownership, as it pertains to a business’ equipment, isn’t really constructive or valuable – cash flow is better!
Embrace Telecommuting
The money you can save by just allowing some or all of your employees to telecommute (work from home) is enormous. You can downsize your commercial space while retaining the same amount of staff, a move that can save a ton of money. Also, you save on supplies, parking and cleaning. And if you’re worried that offering telecommuting will lead to a spike in absenteeism, don’t be: studies have shown that working from home can actually reduce absenteeism and increase productivity.
There are other effective measures you can take to save money. You can switch from traditional advertising over to the much cheaper social media advertising. You can install workflow automation programs that track projects and time, saving you money on lost productivity. You can even do something as simple as switching over to low-flow plumbing devices. But for the ease of execution and the positive impact they can have, you can’t beat the above three money saving measures.
