Each year on December 31, many folks are making personal resolutions for the new year. Have you thought about making resolutions for your business? Perhaps one of those resolutions is to cut costs. Below is a list of ideas to cut costs in your business that you may find beneficial.
Administrative:
- Conduct an employee survey about which fringe benefits that your employees truly value. You might find that you are spending a lot of money on things like expensive company outings or on certain obscure insurance benefits that your employee base does not really care about. Particularly in mature businesses, you might find that you have been doing certain things for years that are outdated.
- Revisit your cell phone program with your provider to ensure your company is on the plan that works best for you. You may even consider providing technology allowances to employees rather than supplying them with phones and other devices. It’s surprising how much time it takes to properly monitor costs, usage, and add-on charges that individuals might sign up for.
- Better control purchases of office supplies. It might surprise you how much you are spending on the little things that fall under your radar. Consider bidding your office supply purchase out to various vendors. They can give you ideas on cheaper pens, paper, etc.
- Revisit lease agreements for copiers and other office equipment.
- Rather than sending an administrative person to the bank every day, get a check reader so that you can make your deposits from your office. On average, it takes 30 – 45 minutes to make a round trip to the bank. If you do that every day, it amounts to 100 – 150 hours per year – per location.
Building Expenses
- Revisit contracts with telephone, internet and cable service providers. Again, make sure that you are on the right plan for your business, and that you are purchasing only the features that you need.
- If you have a building as little as 10 years old, consider an energy study. You might be surprised how much more efficient newer lighting, appliances and plumbing appliances are. Also, many local utilities offer special programs to supplement and/or finance the cost.
- Change your air filters.
- Maximize the use of your HVAC setback system if you have one.
Finances:
- If you are setting aside money to make a loan payment a couple weeks in the future, go ahead and make the payment now. Make sure that the bank gives you credit on the interest calculation on the day the payment is made.
- Monitor your line of credit and cash balances regularly. If you have excess cash and also a balance on your line of credit, pay it down. In this day and age, you can electronically transfer funds back and forth on a daily basis – and it does not cost anything
- Email billings instead of mailing them. Saves postage and shortens turnaround time.
- If you as the owner do not sign checks, do so one month a year. What you are spending might surprise you.
- Review expense reports routinely.
- Be careful with corporate credit cards. Get your bank to provide you with a system where you can control employee card credit limits easily.