With the end of the financial year fast approaching, now is the perfect time to turn over a new leaf and take control of your business finances. The end of the financial year is certainly a busy time for most small businesses with year-end accounts and tax returns to prepare, but perhaps the most important job of all is to begin planning for the year ahead.
Putting in the hard work now will help you work smarter and faster over the coming year, reduce stress and making sure everything is in the right place when you need it. With that in mind, these are our top financial organisation tips…
Introduce a CRM system
Customer relationship management or CRM is a system for managing relationships with your customers. As a business grows, it becomes much easier to have one central place where information about your customers can live. That includes everything from how they’ve interacted with your business to who they are, their contact details and much more. Having all that information in one location allows your team to interact with them quickly, pick up conversations where they left off and learn more about their wants and needs.
What does all that have to do with your business finances? Well, as well as integrating your marketing and sales databases into a single CRM system, it also makes sense to include your accounting and financial data too. That will give you total insight into the customer journey at every stage of the lifecycle, from sales prospect to payments and collections.
Switch to Direct Debit collections
As well as using Direct Debit to pay your bills, it’s also an incredibly simple way to collect regular and one-off payments from your clients and customers. Direct Debit gives you the ability, with the customer’s permission, to access their bank account to collect the amount due on the date it should be paid. You receive the money you’re owed without any delays to improve cash-flow and avoid time spent chasing late payments.
Switching your collections to Direct Debit can be achieved in just a few steps to realise compelling benefits that include:
- Saving you time – Running a business can be hectic, but Direct Debit helps to reduce much of the hassle associated with collecting payments. It also reduces the associated workload and paperwork for your finance team.
- Providing peace of mind – Transactions take place automatically so you don’t have to worry about whether customer payments have been received.
- Giving you complete transparency – You have around the clock access to your Direct Debit account and automatically receive reports of all transactions, including any failures and cancellations, so you can follow them up immediately.
Migrate your accounts to the cloud
If you still rely on Excel spreadsheets for your accounts then now is the time to move your finances to the cloud. Cloud accounting software like QuickBooks and Xero is a sound investment, helping your business work smarter and faster, giving you an instant overview of your finances and improving collaboration with your team. You can also access all your financial information at anytime, anywhere and from any device to increase efficiency and save time.
Simplify your business finances
Ready to reorganise your business finances for the year ahead? Find out more about Direct Debit for SMEs at London & Zurich and contact our team today.
