6 Areas Your Business is Losing Money

Collaborative Post

Cash flow is one of the most important aspects of a business, but if you are wasting money, that flow will soon dry up, and you'll be left struggling to move forward. There are multiple factors that can affect a business's cash flow, from a change in consumer habits, a drop in sales, poor forecasting, or simply not keeping a close enough eye on what you are paying out.

If you don't have a good handle on your finances, then you're likely wasting money in certain aspects of the business, and you need to identify these issues to help you plug the holes and improve your finances.

It always pays to be on top of your income and spending habits as a business to help you avoid cash flow crises and support your operations.

If you feel you need to address your finances or you're worried you might be losing money, these are some of the more common areas of business you might simply throw your money away.

Employee hours

Are you keeping a check on your employee's working hours and knowing what they are working to ensure they get paid the right amount? If you don't know how to track employee hours effectively, then chances are you will be doing yourself a disservice as you won't be able to see if they are being paid correctly or even if they are working for the hours they are being paid. Employee wages can become a huge financial drain if you aren't monitoring them, and while cases of payroll fraud anent exceptionally high, there are some common issues employers face. Whether this is false wage claims, falsification of records, or overestimating employees' benefits, you need to be stamping out untoward behavior by enforcing employee tracking and monitoring systems to ensure everyone is being paid correctly and you aren't being taken for a ride by one or more unscrupulous employees.

Underutilizing software

So you've found a great piece of software for your money, you have had it installed and set up, and then that's it. Job done, right? Wrong; chances are you might be underutilizing the software without even realizing it. Let's take payroll software. Most companies use less than 20% of the services this software can offer, and the same probably goes for other software they have installed that you don't fully understand. Go back to the drawing board, talk to the developers, and make sure you are using all of the functions applicable to your business to help you streamline what you do and get the most benefit from it. The last thing you want to do is pay out for more software only to find you already have one capable of doing the job or even be using employees to fulfill tasks that could be done by your software if only you delved into it a bit more.

Not using automation

It goes without saying that if your employees are tied up doing tedious, repetitive tasks, they won't have as much time to do what you need them to do. Failing to incorporate automation into how you work can be a massive money pit. You need to be checking how you can automate specific tasks within the company to free time up to put to use in other areas and looking at what you can automate for the best results. Once you eliminate this from your working day, you will find you and your employees can get so much more done.

Ineffective staff management

If you aren't able to delegate your workers to the areas they need to be in when they need to be there, you might as well be paying them to do nothing. You need to make sure that you are managing your working day to allow you to get the right people when you need them. If you are over or understaffing at certain times, e.g., not pulling enough kitchen and waitstaff in for busy lunch services, chances are you won't be able to run the orders in a timely fashion, losing to you leading sales; the same goes for filing your dinner service with staff too early and having them standing around with nothing to do, waiting for a rush.

Poor management behaviors

People don't quit jobs. They quit people. And while it might be a trope pulled out when looking at retention figures, it's also true. If you have a problem with your management staff not treating employees properly, you are losing money through the recruitment of new employees frequently. If you notice you have a revolving door in certain departments or the company as a whole, you need to find out what the issue is and get to the bottom of it if it relates to poor management techniques, even if that comes from you.

Ineffective Marketing

A marketing campaign is essential for any business, but if you're not doing your research or simply going with the same methods as you always have, you might as well be burning your money.

Failing to use your analytics and put thought into your marketing campaign will simply render it useless. You can't expect to have an effective marketing campaign without first using your data and checking what it is telling you. With no primary purpose, goal, or audience, your marketing efforts will fall flat and waste money. You need to make sure you understand who your ideal customer is, what they are all looking for, and where you fit into the equation. From here, you can make the necessary edits to ensure it hits where you need it to and get the results you are looking for.

There are multiple areas of your business that can be wasting your money if you're not paying them enough attention. Start by identifying the different areas of your business you are spending more on than expected, then look at the reasons why so you can begin to address them. From here, you can put changes in place to help avoid any wastage and maximize your profits to remain a healthy, viable business.

—End of collaborative post—