4 Tips to help your debtor management

It’s not easy to request payment right now, but it is important to keep cash flowing into your business so you can cover expenses and meet your obligations to others.

As with all business dealings right now, a little empathy and a lot of open communication can go a long way.

The following tips might be useful to keep in mind when you are asking for payment.

Communication

Connecting with your customers is important. Try to make it personal to their situation rather than a one-size-fits-all email.

Connecting on a more personal level shows you value them and are conscious of the impacts that the current situation may be having on them. The empathy you show now will also be remembered when business returns to normal.

And, be proactive . Early communication will help you stay on top of cash flow and will also alert you, if you need to account for late payments.

Add value

Use your expertise to give something back. Surprise and delight your customers by offering something over and above your usual services.

It could be as simple letting customers know you want to help and being open to requests, offering a one-off discount or an offer just to chat one to one.

Offer flexible payment options

For customers who can’t pay in full, consider breaking invoices into multiple payments with payment terms moved to a longer timeframe.

Set up a credit card facility to give customers other options for payment. After all, the easier you can make it for them to pay you, the quicker you will get paid.

If you don’t have payment services set up in your Xero account, we can help you do this.

Offering a discount for early payment might provide the incentive for customers who can settle, to pay your invoice before others.

Set up debtor management apps

Debtor management apps allow you to automatically send payment reminders, provide cashflow forecasting, automate and tailor debtor communications, and more.

Dedicated debtor management tools help you to collect your debtors faster.

Keeping cash flow going is vital for your business so the earlier you can communicate with customers the better.

Talk to us about ways to improve your debtor management.

Inventory management best practices for retailers

Inventory management is incredibly important in retail and yet studies reveal that 43% of small businesses either don’t track inventory at all, or do it manually. Proper inventory management can be the difference between a lost sale and a lifelong customer.

Here are some quick tips on how you can stay on top of stock control:

Understand the relationship between sales and inventory

Look at inventory and sales data together so you can see the relationship between the two.

For example, if you pull your sales results and see that dresses are 20% of your sales, and jumpsuits have only generated 4%, the instant reaction is to buy more dresses.

However, if you simultaneously look at your inventory results, you may see that while dresses generated 20% of sales, they represented 40% of your inventory, while jumpsuits generated 4% of sales but on 1% of your inventory.

By considering the relationship of sales to inventory, you might discover you are over-inventoried in one item, and missing opportunities to sell another.

Manage residual inventory to control costs and preserve profit

Residual inventory is what remains at the end of one selling season and is carried into the next season. A few examples include wool apparel that is on sale in the spring season or outdoor furniture sets that are marked down after the summer season.

An effective way to manage this is to create season codes with style numbers when you enter items into your inventory management system. This can make analysing sales and inventory by season a significantly easier task.

Equip your business with the right inventory management tools

From choosing the right inventory management software to finding a POS solution that fits your business, it’s essential to implement tools.

The right ones will integrate together to streamline and automate processes, making inventory management more accurate and efficient.

In a competitive market, knowledge is key to business success.

We can help you understand and integrate inventory management apps into your retail business. Get in touch to discuss how.

Social distancing: Running effective online meetings

In unprecedented times, businesses must adapt to remain productive. If face-to-face meetings are a key part of your daily business operation, here are some tips to take your meetings online with minimal disruption.

Find the best system for you

There's a range of free or low-cost platforms, including GoToMeeting, ezTalks, Join.me, Zoom, Google Hangouts, and TeamViewer.

Before you choose one, consider:

• How many people generally attend your meetings?
• Do you require screen share functionality?
• How many meetings do you run? (If it’s a lot, a small monthly subscription may pay off due to better functionality)

Schedule your meeting

Depending on your chosen system, consider how you schedule your online meetings. It may be that you include a link generated by your system into an email calendar invitation. However you do it, make it easy for your meeting attendees to be reminded of the meeting and access the meeting at the time.

Check your tech

Do you need a webcam (usually built into laptops) or an audio headset? These are a must for any online meeting. Communicate the need for this technology to your meeting attendees, and if required consider completing a quick online tech-check before the first meeting.

Set a clear agenda

Like any face-to-face meeting, you’ll need a well-structured agenda to follow. You’ll also need to specify the time a length of the meeting, and respect this. Decide who will take minutes, define the next steps, and if appropriate - BAMFAM (Book a meeting, from a meeting).

Does it need a meeting?

These unfortunate times act as a friendly reminder that some meetings can be emails. Consider using free tools such as Loom to document a longer and more engaging message in a video to send via email. The recipient can view the video multiple times before responding, resulting in a more considered reply.

Online meetings have been a great tool for global businesses for some time; maybe it’s time for your business to adopt online meetings as part of social distancing. They also create capacity for you to do other, more productive, things through reduced time spent travelling to face-to-face meetings.

We can help you.

Talk to us about which apps will best suit your team.

There's an App for that!

Are you overwhelmed with paperwork? Or do you spend too much time wading through administrative tasks? Do you need more time for key staff communications?

As life gets more frenetic, it’s worth looking at utilising the tools to help improve workflows and productivity. In an ‘always on’ digital world, it’s time to get the technology working for you.

But with so many out there, which do you choose?

The idea is to spend less time on admin - not more. So, we have done the research for you.

The following Apps can help streamline your business operation and maximise productivity.

Evernote 

Keeps your notes organized. They can also be files, photos and voice memos. Great for projects, sharing information and collaboration.

Trello

Great for project management.Like an online ‘to-do’ list, your Trello board is the place to organize your tasks, keep track of due dates and keep everyone in the loop on a project.

Google suite 

If you use gmail you can use google suite.You get easy creation, collaboration and sharing of documents (Google Docs), spreadsheets (Google Sheets), presentations (Google Slides) and more.

Toggl

Tracks time on tasks and projects. You can set up manual time entry or put a timer into any web tool making the whole process easier and providing valuable information for billing but also to track your productivity.

Sl​​​​ack

Slack is a communication channel designed specifically for teams. Teams create dedicated channels for projects or areas of work so that the members have all the information in one place.

Zoom

Video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars. Zoom allows participants to join a meeting from their desktop, mobile and tablet device. Easy to set up and free for up to 50 participants for a maximum of 40 minutes.

WhatsApp 

Send messages, images, audio or video.The app allows you to automate, and quickly respond to messages from customers. Also great for sports teams or other groups.

Other Business Apps

We specialise in understanding the different options of business apps for different industries and businesses. And, we can provide you with insights and guidance on what Apps would best suit your business. 

Talk to us today about finding the right Apps to help you grow your business.