Business

When it comes to spending, it is vital to keep track of what you spend both as an individual and as an organization. Tracking your spending as an individual might be easier since you are majorly responsible for most of the spending. However, when it comes to organizational spending, it might be a bit more difficult. Different people are heading different departments who have to make expenses for their department. Even in the case of small businesses, your one or two other staff might sometimes have to run expenses when you are not around. Keeping tab of them could be very difficult and disastrous. Here are some of the best ways to keep track of your business spending.

Expenses could be submitted ahead of time
It is often best to have a system where every department submits the expenses they hope to make in advance for approval before they are implementing it. This is why budgeting is very important even at national levels. Towards the end of every month or year, every department should submit expected expenses for the next month or year. This would be properly vetted by the accounts department and subsequently forwarded to the MD or CEO, who would finally approve the amount that was approved to be disbursed to the different departments.

All records of expenses should be kept
There can sometimes be changes in the spending of the department. They could sometimes not end up buying some particular products or they could buy at a lower or higher price. Based on this, it is still important for every department to properly fill out every single expense they make. Once this is done, it would be possible to reconcile how much was approved for the department and how much was spent. If there are excesses, it would be expected that the excesses be returned to the organization.

Emphasize on receipts
Encourage the collection of receipts for every single expense made where possible. Every expense listed should be followed by a receipt number and photocopies of the receipts added when the reports are being submitted, with the option that the original could be requested where necessary. This would help to ensure that figures are not inflated. You could occasionally visit the stores or call numbers on the receipts to confirm the purchase and the cost of the products.

Being mindful of what you want to buy
If you run a small business, it is important to always be mindful of what you want to buy. Do not go into impulse buying as you might end up buying a lot of things that your organization does not need. The implication is that when there are actual needs, it might be difficult meeting up with them.

Balancing quality and price
When buying items as an organization, you do not always have to go for premium-priced items except your organization can comfortably afford it and your clientele is dependent on such types of item. Otherwise, you should concentrate more on balancing quality and price when you are buying items. High prices do not often automatically mean higher quality. Sometimes, it might just be a matter of the brand name.

Using apps to keep tracks of purchases
You could introduce the use of apps such as Pleo to further help with keeping track of your business spending. The apps go a long way to help you create a soft copy that could be backed up and retrieved more easily even years later.

 

If you are a business owner or you are thinking about launching a business, there is no doubt that you have realized that having a presence online is important. Having an online business may sound easier than one that exists in a physical location, but it takes just as much work to keep up. If you want to succeed in your online business, you need to stay organized, provide excellent customer service, and communicate with customers and clients successfully.

There are many software programs and websites available to business owners of all types. Whether you run a large or a small online business, this software can be extremely beneficial to your business strategy and operations. If you run an online business and want to ensure your success, here are the three types of software that can help you get there.

Software To Your Assets and Departments

If you are a business owner, you know how important it is to keep everything organized, across all departments. There is software available that will allow you to track IT assets and manage IT tasks. An IT asset management software will allow you to close the gaps between your departments and keep track of all your assets in one place. This will give your team the clarity and ease to complete their jobs with precision and confidence.

You can also attach each asset to action, making task flow simple and easy for all team members. In an online business, IT is an all-important department, so it is critical that you manage your IT assets and keep everything running smoothly so that you can keep your business up and running and growing.

Software To Provide Great Customer Service

Many will say that customer service is one of the most important parts of a business. Providing high-quality customer service is a proven way to boost your company’s bottom line and ensure success and upward growth. Additionally, good customer service is one of the top ways to ensure your customers keep coming back to your online business and that they encourage their networks to patronize your business as well.

Word of mouth is highly beneficial. One way to make sure you’re making your customers’ lives easier is by investing in a high-quality customer service omnichannel software that will connect across assets to create a seamless customer service experience. You can even combine this software with an existing CRM such as Salesforce to create a truly unified portal for customer interaction. Salesforce call center software will make your customer service team’s lives easier as well as your customers, which is something everyone can be thankful for.

Software To Manage Communications

Do not underestimate the power of newsletters and email blasts. These types of communications, in conjunction with a nice quality CRM software, can be a key to success for your online business. Sending newsletters is cost-effective and could even be free if you are looking to send sparse or simple ones. They are great ways to publish your business’s successes, current promotions, and otherwise increase your brand awareness among clients and potential clients. You can provide updates on your business and potentially entice older customers to come back and patronize your business. Additionally, newsletters can be customized based on the audience they are being sent to, so you can reach niche groups more easily.

Keeping your brand’s name in someone’s inbox is a great way to increase the probability that you will make a sale or otherwise stay top of mind in someone’s head. All of this can increase business performance by boosting sales and reputation.

You probably spend a certain amount of time thinking about your financial portfolio. Even if you’re not a professional investor, and even if you’re not an accountant or an actuary – you need to understand finances well enough to create a nest egg for yourself in the long term.

Because of this, you at least have to have a basic understanding of investments that you can utilize to your long-term advantage. Perhaps you consider property investment the best choice. It is something that many people believe in as a pillar of excellent financial stability.

Second, you can spend some time learning how to invest in the stock market to diversify your portfolio. And third, if you are more into valuable physical objects, you could consider investing in gold and silver and having the material itself somewhere you can get to it if you need to.

Property Investment

If you look at some of the smartest investors, they will tell you that property is where it’s at. Since land is a fixed thing, the value of it keeps going up. Because of that fact alone, it makes a lot of sense to consider property investment is one of the best ways to consistently make a good return on your investment.

Property investment can mean putting money into a house that exists on a piece of land, and it can also mean putting money into land itself. It depends on the context of the investment.

Smart Stock Market Investing

How much do you know about the stock market? If you’re like most people, you know that it exists and that it makes certain people money somehow. But when you begin learning how to invest in the stock market on a more logical level, you see that there is lots of room for you to make practical decisions about your financial future.

You can follow the advice of some of the best minds in the industry and typically get quite a good return on your investment, assuming that you put money into the right stocks at the right time.

Gold and Silver

Some people like investing in tangible things. In that case, consider putting your money into gold and silver. Not only can this be an enjoyable investment because of the relative certainty behind it, but it also gives you something shiny to hold in your hands. If the world’s financial institutions fall apart, the people who have invested in gold and silver will find themselves at a distinct advantage.

If this sounds like an exciting way to invest money for you, there’s plenty of research to show you the best way to invest in gold and silver and the best time to do it.

Business technology is constantly changing, and it takes a constant effort to stay up with the trends. The internet is a prevalent part of today’s culture, and it’s clear that your business needs a well-built website to keep up with the times.

Your business website can pull a lot of weight for your operation if you work to create a place where web users want to be. Take a moment now to delve into the importance of a well-built business website in 2019, and get to work on upgrading your pages today.

Your website should draw interest

It seems like a given, but web users really have no patience for the mundane. Your website has got to catch the attention of passing users within the first ten seconds of their arrival, or they’re likely to move on to the next best destination.

Make sure your homepage puts your best foot forward. Offer a mind-catching headline as soon as users land on your page. Add two to three primary calls to action to urge people to engage with your business.

Make it a place for communication

Your business website should encourage web users to communicate with your business. If they have questions, comments, suggestions, etc, then it should be easy for people to share those things.

Start by building a “Contact Us” page on your site. Your contact page should be simple, and it should offer more than one way for users to communicate with your business. This express freight contact page is a perfect example of where you should head with your own design.

Learn to create conversions

Design your website in such a way that it funnels web users into conversions. Your website is there to help boost sales, so don’t lose sight of your foundational goal along the way.

Delve into the design elements that will help you create a productive conversion funnel, and apply the knowledge you uncover as you plan out your website pages. Build a website that is a pivotal part of your sales totals.

Add social media to your strategy

Social media is always a crucial element of any web content you create, and your website is certainly no exception. Add social media sharing icons in thoughtful locations as you design your website, and make it easy for users to help spread the word about your operation.

Present a mobile-friendly hotspot

Today’s internet is flooded with mobile users. Design a website that is mobile-ready, so there are no limitations to the functionality of your pages. Make the display versatile and the buttons large, so the size of a mobile screen won’t be an issue for users.

Social media marketers are expected to juggle multiple social profiles. In addition, they are expected to keep these accounts up to date with fresh posts as well as innovative content. It’s tough.

Your social media followers are always hungry for new content. As such, as a social media manager you’re expected to deliver the content that the demand on a consistent basis. Your target market looks to your brand in order to provide quality content. However, it can definitely be challenging to come up with new as well as engaging social media content on a regular basis.

You need to take social media seriously

A total of 78% of companies have teams who are devoted to managing their social media. Five years ago, this was 67%. This shows us that, increasingly, businesses are acknowledging the power of social media in attracting and engaging customers. The bad news is that 83% of customers have stated that they’ve had negative encounters with social media marketing.

As a company owner, it’s evident that making use of social media marketing – to your advantage – is critical. However, you need to know how to maximise the effect of your social media marketing campaigns. You need to know what your social media marketing goals should be as well as how to achieve these.

Brands need to have many social media ideas in reserve

Social media has profoundly altered the manner in which communication functions between companies as well as their customers. This essentially creates a public forum for communication between the business and all of its clients. Communication between businesses as well as their customers is now a two-way street and it’s necessary to keep the flow of communication constant. This requirement necessitates brands keeping ideas for social media posts in reserve as this enables customers to engage with their favourite brands in entirely new manners.

The term ‘social media engagement’ refers to a measurement of how efficiently a business is establishing interactions with its customers by using social media. Social media engagement can be measured in a number of ways:

• Likes,
• Mentions,
• Shares,
• Views,
• Comments, and
• Subscriptions.

Social media engagement correlates with the number of people who are creating a relationship with the brand. Strategies in the social media realm reflect the truth that customers must promote to customers where they are. According to statistics 30% of all time spent online is now allotted to social media communication. The average individual spends just under two hours per day on social media. Thus, social media engagement is essential in order to make sure that your brand is capturing enough attention.

Create a Series

If you want to make your social feed having the feeling of an event as opposed to a laundry list of random posts start a series where you have the chance to interact with your fans as well as followers on a regular basis.

Communicating with followers using Twitter is painless because it only requires a branded hashtag in order to get started. By scheduling these sessions regularly, followers can have their voices heard while they also engage with your brand.

Asking for your followers’ opinions shows that you care about them and this also assist you with tapping into your audience’s pains as well as concerns. If you’re struggling with “showing up” on the social feeds of your followers, a regular series is a good starting point.

Run a Contest or Giveaway

Individuals are unable to resist the power of the word “free.” This means that running the sporadic contest is one of the most social media ideas that has the most impact when it comes to potential engagement from followers.

The stats prove it: 91% of Instagram posts that have more than 1 000 likes or comments are related to a contest. Meanwhile, accounts which run contests regularly are noted to grow 70% faster as opposed to those which don’t.

Social media marketing can be extremely valuable in your overall digital marketing campaigns. In addition, it can make a big difference in lead generation, brand awareness as well as sales. Keep these thoughts in mind when you’re planning your next campaign!

A clean and organized office can help you become more productive. The mess in your workplace can make you feel stressed, thus also affecting your overall work. If you find your office space messy, it’s time for a much-needed decluttering. Here are some tips on how to do that.

Start with one area

It can be overwhelming to start with the decluttering process. However, you don’t have to do everything in one day. What’s important is that you begin cleaning up and continue until you complete the work. Focus on one area first, especially since you have other tasks that you need to do in the workplace. For example, you may start with cleaning and organizing your filing cabinets, then move to the things on top of your desk or the desk cabinets.

Determine which items you no longer use

Get boxes where you can put things that you will use and things that you need to dispose of. Once you sort things out in which box they belong, it will be easier for you to decide where to place items that you still use. For the things that you no longer use, you can either give them to others that may find them useful or throw them in the trash.

Add more storage

If you need a lot of things at work, having plenty of room will help keep your space clean and organized. Find ways you can add more storage. For example, you can have floating cabinets installed as they will maximize your space, and at the same time, they will give you more area for storage.

Buy organizers

After sorting out your things, it’s the best time to buy organizers like bins and baskets. It will be easier to keep things in place if you have them. If you purchase organizers before sorting your items, you may end up buying more or fewer than what you need. Both can be a hassle, so it’s best to do it after sorting your stuff. Aside from keeping items in place, organizing your things will also make it easier for you to find them.

Put things back in their place

Once you are done cleaning and organizing your space, you must develop good habits to keep it that way. For example, ensure that you put things back where they belong to keep your space clutter-free.

Save digital copies of files

Papers and documents can take up much space on your desk and filing cabinet. Keep digital copies of records by saving them on your computer instead of printing. Of course, there will be documents that you may need to print, but if it’s not required, then it’s best to minimize it.

Make it a habit to clean your space every day to avoid trash from building up or having your things all over the place again. For the things that you need to dispose of after decluttering, you may get help from Evergreen Junk Removal for pickup and disposal. They can also haul all other office items that you need to throw out like old furniture or equipment.

Image: https://pixabay.com/photos/office-sitting-room-executive-730681/