TIME, MONEY & EFFORT: EXPENSES TO KEEP TRACK OF YOUR REMOTE ORGANISATION

Time, money and effort are important for every business. Mismanage them and your company could quickly slip into the red and find yourself the ex-owner of another failed business.

There are many great things about running a remote organisation but oversight isn’t one of them. It’s harder to manage many aspects of your company because you’re simply not there to physically see how they’re operating.

Tools, programmes and software can help you get back some of this oversight.

In this article, we’ve highlighted how you can use tools to control time, money and effort and keep the expenses of your remote organisation on track.

 

Time: you need to know how long projects are taking

When we mention time in your remote organisation, what we’re talking about is the minutes and hours and your employees spend on tasks and projects.

Specifically, we’re referring to the difference between how much time you expect these things to take and how many minutes and hours are actually spent on them. Keeping track of this helps you keep on top of your profit margins and time tracking software allows you to do this.

Managing the time spent on projects and tasks is super important for your business. This is because you bill clients based on these duties taking a certain amount of time. If they end up taking longer than you budgeted for, you might find yourself making a loss on contracts.

 

You could invest in tools (like HourStack) to manage your time.

HourStack allows you to set up projects (clients) and tasks (work). This lets you track how much time is being spent on individual clients and the work you do for them. You can review the reports available from HourStack, enabling you to ensure you and your employees stay on track and on budget.

Every business owner needs to manage their employees’ time but this of particular significance for remote organisations. Why? Because you trust them to work the hours you expect them to and if they don’t it has severe consequences for your company. Time tracking tools let you see if your trust is being respected.

So, check out what features are available with HourStack and try it today.

 

Money: you have to know how much everything costs

When we say money, we could be talking about a huge range of things in your remote organisation — it impacts absolutely everything you do.

To keep things simple, we’ll stick to the amount of cash you’re spending on keeping your company going, things such as wages, rent and equipment. Keeping track of this shows if you’re spending more than you make and budgeting programmes provide this information.

Controlling how much money your company is crucial. This is because your company must spend less than it makes to stay afloat. If it doesn’t achieve this then you won’t be able to pay your utilities, creditors and employees.

 

You can get programmes (such as Mint) to manage your costs.

Mint’s dashboard lets you collect all your accounts in one place. This allows you to see exactly how much money you’re spending and to categorise every payment you make. Perhaps, the best thing about the reporting programme is that it enables you to compare your spending to the national average. This puts your costs into context and shows if they’re truly on track or if they’re higher than they should be.

All companies need to manage their finances but it can be trickier as a remote business. The reason for this is you can’t physically check in with your accounts team or employees to see where your money is going. You have to take their word for it and budgeting programmes provide the evidence to back up or question what they say.

So, have a look at all the other great features available with Mint and then download this great reporting programme.

 

Effort: you must know if people are working efficiently

When we highlight effort in your remote organisations, we’re referring to if your employees are doing what you expect of them while they’re working.

The reason we refer to it in this way is it can be tricky to quantify effort in a tangible way. For instance, your employees could be completing the tasks you ask of them in the timescales you set them. You can review this tool like HourStack, which we mentioned earlier.

However, this doesn’t tell you if they could be working quicker. That’s something you’ll only know from observing their behaviour or them highlighting that they have more to give.

This is why we’ve applied effort to something tangible — the effort they put into maintaining your company assets. This is important because if you have to repair or replace your assets then it costs your business time and money.

Your assets can cover a wide range of things. From more abstract things like brand identity and intellectual property to physical objects like computers and company cars. To illustrate this example, we’ve selected company cars, because (unlike many assets) there is a way of remotely tracking how your employees look after the company cars you allow them to use.

 

You could use software (like telematics) to manage the maintenance of your company cars.

Telematics compiles detailed reports of how your employees are using the vehicles (one of the most valuable bits of equipment at most companies) you assign to them. They show how they behave when they’re behind the wheel, such as braking too harshly. These behaviours can lead to wear and tear for your vehicles, causing you to spend money on repairs and replacements. Therefore, you can use the data from these reports to introduce behavioural changes that increase the effort your employees put into maintaining your vehicles.

All organisations need to ensure their equipment is properly maintained but it can be tougher when you operate remotely. This is because you might not be able to see the state of your equipment. Telematics is a way of giving you the oversight you need, so you can check in on your employees when they are on the road.

 

Time, money and effort are three expenses you have to keep track of in any business. They become even more important when you’re a remote organisation because you simply don’t have the same oversight you get in a non-remote business.

 We’ve highlighted three ways you can reclaim some of this oversight and use it to manage your company. So, put our recommendations into practice and use them to protect the long-term health of your business.

 

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