Survival of the fittest, or the smartest?
Josh Smithurst from our cloud accounting team sees opportunities amid the gloom of the past year.
It's nearly twelve months since the start of the UK lockdowns, and with the Prime Minister Boris Johnson releasing his roadmap to easing lockdown restrictions on Monday 22 February, it seems a good time to reflect on everything that has happened in our everyday lives since 23rd March 2020. I'm sure we'd all agree there's a lot which we would rather forget. Many of us would prefer to move on. On the other hand, the last year has shone a spotlight on our resilience and togetherness and, at the same time, proved that – even in times of despair – there are huge opportunities to be grasped in industries across the UK.
Businesses who have made remote learning and remote working more accessible, such as Microsoft, Zoom and Slack, saw an unprecedented increase in use, growing their customer bases significantly. With everybody staying at home and, as a result, using more electricity and gas, especially during the winter, it should come as no surprise that energy companies have also profited very well from a year of lockdowns and people working and studying from home.
Finally, and arguably most obviously, we've seen the ever-increasing success of online retailers. With people able to place orders in as little as a few clicks, sales have been driven sky high as we elected to buy both essentials and luxury items online rather than on the high street over the past twelve months.
These types of businesses were all well placed to take advantage of the vastly altered consumer landscape of 2020, and the rewards fell right into their laps.
But if your company doesn't fall into one of the categories above, how can you ensure that you are doing all that you can to futureproof your business, or to take advantage of the changing consumer landscape?
History has showed us, time and again, that those who move and adapt survive and those who stand still do not. If you are sat waiting patiently for things to return to the previous 'normal', whether in respect of the overall economy, your specific industry or even day-to-day life as we knew it pre-COVID, then you need to urgently reassess whether staying still is the best course of action.
There are very few, if any, industries that will not face some sort of change because of everything that has happened. So, instead of waiting patiently, my advice would be to draw up a plan to adapt to the current climate in the best way for your own situation. After all, change is opportunity for those who have the determination to reach out and grasp it.
Is your business making the most of the digital tools available? They're at the forefront of the change that we have encountered. With apps such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom, we have been able to attend meetings globally from the comfort of our own homes. This has been a revelation for so many companies, which have realised they could save a huge amount of overhead in the form of travel costs, room hire and office rent. 2020 has proved for many businesses that these costs are all surplus to running a company successfully. The question is, how do you best adapt to reducing these costs going forwards with the minimal impact on your ability to conduct business effectively? That will be a more difficult question for some to answer than others, but an important one to address nonetheless.
Continuing on the digital front, employing technology such as Quickbooks Online and Receipt Bank can allow you to have a paperless office. Receipt Bank offers a number of different methods to capture and record your invoices/receipts, from taking a quick picture of a receipt when you fill your tank up, to fetching your monthly telephone bill straight from your online account, without even needing to log in. Receipt Bank can import all of this straight into Quickbooks, or your chosen cloud bookkeeping software, to then tie in with your income and bank account transactions. It has never been simpler to keep on top of your records.
One of the main benefits of using these different apps and software is the automation of your processes. Let the computer work for you. This will reduce human error on data entry and also reduce the number of hours spent performing these menial tasks. By having these processes in place, you will be setting your business up to work smarter, not harder. That, in turn, will allow you to free up your time to focus on either growing the business or simply enjoying the extra time that you now have free because you aren't wrangling with a spreadsheet on the weekends!
Page Kirk offers Receipt Bank and Quickbooks licences free of charge to all our clients. Let us show you how to use them and how we can save you countless hours looking after your books.
Contact us on 0115 9555500 or email enquiries@pagekirk.co.uk.