Did you know that, on average an SME in the UK spends 1,704 hours per year on administrative tasks?
To put it into perspective that’s 71 days – about the same amount of time it took Columbus to sail the first voyage to America back in 1492.
Or in simple business terms, this equates to a single member of staff completely wrote off for an entire year, spending every hour of their day completing manual admin tasks that are adding no value to your business or utilising their greater skillset. Granted, these tasks are at the core of business operations and without them there would be chaos, but with an estimated £35,600 being spent by each SME every year on admin tasks, it’s clear that valuable time and money is being wasted.
One of the biggest challenges faced by businesses is the approval of documents involved in their key processes and operations, with many using traditional manual methods to key in data, store their important files, and communicate approvals between necessary members of staff.
Depending on the size of the business and the complexity of the process, the approval of an invoice from a supplier for instance, could wind up being a lengthy back-and-forth of messy paper trails, missing or inaccurate information and delayed responses, leading to late payments and a sour relationship with the vendor. This doesn’t set your company in good stead to grow and prosper, does it?
If this situation sounds all too familiar, you’re not alone. 40% of SMEs told our partner Sage they feel it’s difficult to make administrative cost savings in order to be more competitive. But the truth is, it doesn’t have to be a struggle.
Utilising technology to digitise these processes could release the burden of administrative tasks; freeing up your people to add value in other areas of the business, ensuring deadlines are met through automation, removing the element of human error and guaranteeing consistence in delivery every time.
If you’re running Sage 200 as your company’s ERP system, the answer to streamlining your processes and saving both time and money in the long run could be as simple as implementing some clever and widely accessible enhancements into your existing Sage 200 solution.
You don’t have to understand the ins and outs of the technology behind the solutions (that’s our job), but the instant benefits of cutting down on admin hours, such as increased productivity and having more time to focus on growing your business, should be reason enough to take the first steps towards improving the way you operate.
