Running a company can involve having to pay lots of different people from suppliers to employees. On top of this, you need to ensure that your customers are paying you on time. Without the right amount of organisation, it can become easy to lose track of all these payments, forgetting to pay people on time and not chasing up people who owe you money. Here are some ways that you can help to stay on top of your finances.
Schedule outgoing costs to go out on the same day
Having your energy bills, employee wages and supplier payments all go out on one day is an easy way of keeping track of payments. This may require contacting suppliers and asking them to move the payment date – many will be willing to do this.
Set payment reminders
You can also keep on track of payment by setting reminders on your phone or email calendar. These could be reminders to look in your account before bills comes out or reminders to check up on clients that are usually late paying.
Outsource your payroll
If you have staff working for you, your most important outgoing payment is employee wages. To make sure that your employees are paid on time and that there are no errors, you could consider outsourcing your entire payroll. This could be particularly useful for companies in which employee hours and responsibilities each week vary where there is more room for error – a professional payroll service will be able to prevent these errors occurring.
Automate customer bills
If you’re constantly making errors on invoices or forgetting to send them off, it could be worth automating these customer bills using software such as SATbill. This could save you a lot of time billing customers on top of preventing errors.
Streamline your suppliers
It could also be worth potentially streamlining your supply chain. This could involve outsourcing a supply chain management company such as Malcolm Logistics. Such a company can keep track of all your suppliers and then invoice you with one single bill which you can then pay off (the supply chain management company then divide the money amongst your suppliers). Alternatively, you may find that you’re able to switch suppliers and take on companies that provide multiple services. This could include opting for a business insurance package rather than multiple insurance schemes from different providers, or using one general marketing company rather than separate companies for SEO, social media and ads.
Consolidate your debts
If you’ve got lots of debts, it could also be worth taking out a debt consolidation loan to pay all these off. This could leave you with one single debt payment each month rather than multiple payments. Always check interest rates when taking out these types of loans so that you’re not adding huge amounts to your debt.
