February 28th, 2014
When you’re running a small business, whether it’s just you or a small team of people, it seems like everything is your job! This can mean that a great deal of time is lost on assorted admin tasks. It’s essential to find ways of streamlining all this work, and one idea to explore is moving into business offices for rent, where various support services are provided as part of the package.
Here is a look at just some of the tasks which you are likely to face as a small business owner. All these areas of work are necessary to operate your business, but they won’t make you any money, and could take up a great deal of time.
Time-Consuming Support Tasks
Getting phones and IT working is just one of the headaches facing any new business. Technological advances in recent years mean that high-speed internet is no longer a luxury, but something which the business world regards as standard. In order to give your customers the service they expect, you will need to have reliable IT – and that also means having reliable backup staff you can call on if your systems go wrong. Enough telephones for your staff are equally vital, so that clients contacting your business centre don’t constantly hear an engaged tone and give up trying.
Training new staff is essential to get them up to speed, but it will inevitably take a lot of time and mean you lose precious hours from your own working week. Even more time is likely to be lost through ensuring essential admin tasks are carried out, such as paying your business rates and utilities and organising your payroll and HR functions.
Yet another aspect of running a business which can’t be ignored is organising health and safety, including getting risk assessments done and ensuring fire extinguishers and alarms are in place for your office rental or workshop. But that’s not all, as there are even more essential housekeeping tasks to take on board, from providing kitchen and washing facilities to arranging cleaning.
Oh – and on top of all this, you need to build in some time for getting new clients and ensuring existing clients are happy! Some days it can feel more as if you’re the admin assistant than the company director.
The only way to really move a business forward is to give it your complete focus. This means the need to free yourself, or your team, from the distractions of keeping the offices you rent clean, safe and functioning, even though many of those things are essential for everyday working and in some cases they may be legal requirements.
How to Stop Admin Taking Over
Fortunately, there are ways of keeping on top of admin tasks so that, as a business owner, you can exert maximum effort on revenue generating activities. Here are some ideas which could help to save you both time and money.
Hire In Help – This might sound as if it is going to cost you money, but it could actually be a saving when you work out just how much all the admin tasks you carry out yourself are already costing. Take the trouble to calculate your own hourly rate or what your time is worth, and this will usually be far more than the cost of hiring an admin assistant. However, if you are not sure whether you’re ready to take the plunge, you could test the water by initially hiring a temp through an agency for a fixed period.
Outsource – There are a number of areas where it is simpler all round to hire the expertise of professionals or contractors in that particular field. This could include book-keeping, ensuring that you always stay up to date with tasks such as sending out invoices on time to keep on top of your cashflow. You could also outsource health and safety functions, as well as areas such as office cleaning. It is possible to outsource without having to become an employer, and these types of arrangement can often be tax-deductible business expenses, offering further savings.
Pool Resources: Working together with other small businesses can create economies of scale, for instance sharing the costs of accountants or payroll, or making a combined deal with utility providers. There may be scope for businesses to share the cost of consultants or even work out arrangements to share staff time, giving added flexibility which will help to meet fluctuating demands.
Serviced offices – When you are seeking business offices for rent, choosing fully serviced offices can help to take away many of the everyday tasks involved in running a small company. Basepoint’s business centres offer facilities including serviced meeting rooms, a manned reception desk, break-out areas and on-site support, plus telephones and broadband.
