How do you grow a business without drowning in admin?
It’s a problem every growing business eventually runs into. You’re doing well, you start taking on new customers and then — whoosh — suddenly your plate is full of invoices to process, customer details to track, manual data entry…
It sucks.
And the worst part is most business owners don’t realise how much money these manual tasks are actually costing them. On the surface it’s wasted time. But those are the hidden costs few understand:
Your business profit.
employee churn.
growth potential.
To be fair, what you’re NOT going to learn here:
Let’s not sugar coat this. Automation is the future. Handling administrative tasks manually is expensive. This article explores:
- How much those manual tasks COST you
- How growing businesses suffer most from that cost
- How a customer management software system changes the game
- Easy steps you can take to start automating today
Let’s dive in
What Manual Admin Tasks Cost Your Business
You’re losing money whenever someone is doing manual admin work for your business.
Think about how much time you spend sitting at a desk each day entering data. Now think about how much time you could be spending finding new customers if that wasn’t your responsibility.
Business growth slows down when your team is bogged down with repetitive admin tasks. According to research from Sage, the average SME loses 2 working days per month on financial admin — chasing invoices, late payments, cleaning up records.
Two days per month.
That’s basically like working 13 months per year and only getting paid for 12.
Scary when you think about it like that.
But wait, there’s more…
Mid-sized businesses spend up to $2,000 USD per employee per year on admin tasks. That means if you have 50 employees, you’re losing $100k USD a year on manual admin work.
Here are some other hidden costs associated with doing admin tasks manually:
- Lost productivity — Switching between tasks is estimated to cost up to 40% of your productive time.
- Human errors — Data entry leads to invoicing errors and issues with customer records.
- Delayed payments — When you can’t track invoices easily you lose out on cash flow.
- Employee burnout — Fewer things are worse for employee morale than dull repetitive tasks.
None of these costs show up directly on your balance sheet. But they do add up to limit your growth.
Growth Businesses Are the Ones Who Suffer
Wait. Before going any further…
You’re growing your business. You’re busy hustling, building your dream. But eventually, that constant growth is what traps you into needing a customer management software solution.
Too many clients = spreadsheet chaos.
Imagine you’re running a startup right now with 10 customers.
You can track everything about those 10 customers in a spreadsheet.
You’re good.
Now imagine you suddenly hit 500 customers. You cannot manage that amount of customers on a spreadsheet.
Everything falls through the cracks.
That’s where a good piece of invoice software for SMEs helps.
Orders are missed. Invoices aren’t sent. Customer complaints are not responded to. All of sudden growing your business becomes a huge pain.
Enter The Growth Trap
Growing more customers = More invoices to send
More invoices = More invoice tracking
More tracking = More hours spent on admin
More admin = Less time to…grow your business.
Instead of harnessing that sweet sweet growth you’re just spreading yourself thinner and thinner.
According to Time etc research, entrepreneurs spend 36% of their time every week on administrative tasks.
A full third of each week is spent…doing admin.
Think about that. 36% of your time doing data entry, managing your expenses, invoicing clients.
Imagine how much more you could achieve with that extra time.
Customer Management Software: Automation To The Rescue
The answer isn’t to work more hours. You’ve already got enough on your plate. The answer is working smarter.
Customer management software takes care of the boring repetitive stuff so you can focus your energy where it matters. Here’s the thing…
All of those repetitive tasks that make up your work week:
- Creating and sending invoices
- Tracking customer activity
- Following up on invoices
- Managing customer contact information
- Creating reports
Can all be automated.
Automated software will handle your customers administratively. Invoices are sent on time. Customer records are up to date. Payment reminders are sent without you having to lift a finger.
Immediate benefits you see from introducing automation into your business:
Quicker payments — Invoices are sent out on time, every time. You stop spending two days per month chasing late payers.
Fewer mistakes — Computers don’t forget to send invoices. They don’t make typos when entering customer data. Your records will always be clean.
Happy customers — Spending less time on admin means you actually have time to speak to your customers. You can build real relationships that will keep them coming back.
Scale your business — Onboarding 100 new customers shouldn’t take 100 extra hours of work from you. Good software solutions will scale with your business.
Quickstart Your Automation Journey
Think you’re ready to take the plunge?
Getting set up with a customer relationship management system is easy. Follow these few simple steps and you’ll be on your way to smashing your productivity goals in no time.
STEP 1: Track your current process
The first thing you’ll want to do is sit down with a pen and paper. Track how you spend your time right now in a typical week. Write down every admin task you do and how long it takes.
You’ll be surprised at how much time you’ll realize is going towards admin.
STEP 2: Identify time sucks
Once you’ve got your list go through and highlight the daily or weekly repetitive tasks. Invoicing. Data entry. Customer follow ups. Know what eats your time and you’ll know what to automate.
STEP 3: Choose your tools
Don’t go out and just buy the first piece of software you find. Do your research. Find a software solution that allows you to track invoices, customers and communicate with them all in one place. Prime is that tool.
Don’t settle for software that makes your life more difficult.
STEP 4: Implement slowly
Want to know a secret? You don’t have to automate everything at once. Start with one process. Get the hang of it. Then choose another process to automate. Slow and steady wins the race.
STEP 5: Review your time saved
Did you write down how long your tasks took in step 1? Go back and compare! You’ll be blown away at how much more productive you can be when you aren’t doing admin!
The majority of businesses see huge leaps in productivity within the first month of implementation. Invoices are paid quicker. Customer data isn’t messy. You finally get ahead.
Wrap Up
Doing administrative tasks manually is expensive.
More expensive than most businesses realise. Sure, it’s just time you waste looking at spreadsheets. But when you dig a little deeper those are the hidden costs:
Lost productivity
Human errors
Delayed payments
Employee churn.
At the end of the day your business can’t grow if you’re stuck in admin hell.
Customer management software was designed to fix these problems.
Not convinced? Here’s a recap of what this post covered:
- Mid-sized businesses spend up to $2000 USD per employee annually on admin tasks.
- Growth businesses get stuck in a vicious cycle of increasing admin as they take on more customers
- Customer management software allow you to automate repetitive tasks
- Implementing automation into your business should be done gradually
Businesses that win are the ones that catch these hidden costs early. They invest in the right systems before their admin workload gets too heavy.
Don’t work 13 months to only get paid for 12.
Implement automation on tasks that don’t require human interaction.
You’ll thank yourself later.
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