Organizing your business (pt. 1)

We have established a business. The start is a significant accomplishment. Now we are operating—selling products and services to customers who return again and again to buy from us. The business is growing, and as is often the case with new start-ups, most of the work is performed by a small team, or sometimes a team of one. And as time passes, we become busy with all of the daily activities of business ownership, and the work of maintaining an organized business often gets postponed until we have more time.

The reality of business ownership is that we will not magically receive more time. But when we get ourselves organized, we take less time to perform the tasks that the business requires, and we transfer time to other more critical business priorities.

How does one organize a business?

Make a list of your daily activities. What consumes your time during your business operations hours? Scrutinize the list. How do those activities get done? For each task, ask, do I have what I need at my fingertips, or do I often waste a lot of time getting those tasks completed?

If you answer that you waste a lot of time, that’s an indicator where attention needs to be focused.

Let’s focus on a few common business tasks that will free up time if we can become better organized.

Business documentation

If we need to find a particular document (electronic or physical), how easy is it to do so? Do we have backup copies in case there is an issue? Does everyone who needs to access these documents understand how to access them easily?

Example: Contract documents

Contract documents can be organized in a few ways. You could top-level organize by year executed, but that won’t be particularly helpful over the long-term. A better option would be to organize by contracting party. Who are you working with? Within that folder, you can have separate folders for the main agreement, amendments and renewal documents. If the party provides a certificate of insurance, you can make a “Proof of Insurance” folder. I like the following folder organization for contracts.

[Customer Name]

[Drafts]

[Executed (or signed) Agreement]

[Proof of Insurance]

I also create a [Contract Summary] page. It provides me a very simple overview of the key contract terms — payment, term, etc.

However we choose to organize our documents, the schema should be intuitive to anyone that would need to locate the materials.

Paying bills and receiving payments

Do we have a clear, documented system for receiving, processing and paying invoices? Where do invoices get stored until paid? What happens with them once they are paid? How long do we need to keep them? How are they organized once scanned?

Do we a clear, documented system for receiving and processing payments? What happens when we receive payment from a customer? Do we immediately document the payment and head to the bank, or do we have times blocked during the week when we handle those responsibilities?

Block specific time on specific days. Create a routine for each of those major business organization needs.

Whether these activities are performed by us or someone on our team, be disciplined about protecting this time. It is key to staying organized.

Consider scaling

With every business action we take, we should also be thinking about whether the action will continue to work as we scale. Document the processes used to maintain the organization so that anyone who has to take on these responsibilities can assume them with ease.

Key areas requiring organization

Business documents - we should be able to easily access key documents we need to operate the business (articles of incorporation, insurance documents, pay

Paying invoices - we should have a clear idea of what is paid weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually.

Receiving payments - we should have a clear idea of what payment we receive, when we receive it, and how we process

Maintaining insurance, certifications and licenses - we should have all due dates calendared. We should know when insurance will come due and give ourselves sufficient time to evaluate whether the policies we currently have are still the best option for the business. Rates may increase, and if we are not organized, we don’t give ourselves enough time to research other options.

Payroll - Do we have time blocked to complete payroll obligations? Where do we store the documentation? Is it readily accessible if there are any claims that we need to address (e.g., worker’s compensation, unemployment)?

Bids - certain components of a bid can be repackaged and re-used; we should have the ability to identify those portions and readily access them to streamline the bid process.

Marketing/sales content - when we need to send a capabilities statement or other marketing content, can we easily access and customize it for the potential customer? If we want to update and make changes to the content, can we easily access the materials we need?

Example

Consider tax time. Every year we submit documents to our accountant to prepare our taxes. Every year, despite the fact that this activity occurs annually without exception, we scramble to gather up paperwork, scan it in and provide a complete set of documents. Hours of time are spent with this mad scramble, often at the eleventh hour. This routine process can be better organized so that we save hours of time during tax season. Keep a list of necessary tax documents on or near the primary work area. Create a tax file. When we receive certain documents throughout the year, scan them and place them in sub-folders in the tax file. At the end of the year, combine the files into one zip file and upload them to the tax preparer’s portal.

Take Action

We can continue to build on this as we grow. Try to take a new task every week or two. Scrutinize how the activities are currently being performed and where time is being wasted. The purpose of becoming more organized is to free up time to devote to the work that really matters and will grow your business.