Making your business more organized is always a good task to focus on. It might help make your business more dynamic, more focused and more productive. Here are 6 tips to help you get started.
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Have a Clear Out
The first thing to do is have a clear out of the office. You don’t want to have an office full of documents and files that you don’t need any longer. A messy, cluttered office is not a positive office. All that clutter will weigh down your employees and make it more difficult for them to do their work productively. So, be harsh with yourself and get rid of everything that you don’t really need. Some documents may need to be legally kept for a certain length of time – perhaps on off site self storage unit will help de-clutter the office and provide you with more usable work space.
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Stop Using Paper Receipts
There’s simply no reason to keep paper receipts nowadays. You can simply keep an electronic email version. Or you can scan the paper copy into your computer and then throw away the original receipt. It’s pretty simple if you have a decent scanner in the office. And this works even if you have to submit your receipts for tax purposes because they accept electronic copies now. So, don’t waste space storing all those receipts. I find scanning receipts a lot better too as most paper receipts fade over time and are hard to read.
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Use the Cloud
The cloud allows you to store data and files remotely. This is perfect for business owners who are trying to make their office a little more organized. You’ll free up a lot of space in your office because you won’t have to find space for big data storage units or hard drives any longer. All that space can be put to better use. Or you could leave the space empty and enjoy a more minimalist design in the office.
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Organize Your Inbox
Is your email inbox packed full of hundreds of emails? If you are like me at time, I bet that some even go unread. But you should really take an afternoon out of your schedule and try to organize your inbox. You can delete the emails that you no longer need, and save the ones that you might need to refer to in future. I also recommend only keeping the last email in an email chain. There is no need to keep 5 or 6 emails of the same conversation if the last email contains all the back and forth. If you have hundreds of unopened emails in your inbox, you could be missing out on something important.
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Use an Inventory Management System
If your business has supplies and stock that need to be ordered regularly, you could probably benefit from using an inventory management system or an inventory management service. This makes sure that you always have enough stock in the office to cope with demand, but not too much. Ordering too much stock is something that many businesses are guilty of doing, but it’s a complete waste of money and storage space.
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Gain Control of the Books
The company accounts are one of the most important aspects of the business to keep organized. When the books aren’t in order, the company is definitely in trouble. This can lead to all sorts of financial disasters, so don’t take the risk. If you have no idea how to regain control of your messy books, you should hire a bookkeeper or accountant to take care of all of that kind of stuff for you.
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