4 Organizing Tips For Small Businesses

Sophia Belnap

Getting organized is crucial for ensuring that your small business runs smoothly without excess wasted time and resources. But getting to that point can be difficult, especially when you're first getting started. For small businesses, the budget available to spend on organizing needs is usually limited, making it tough to know how to prioritize. Here are some tips for getting your business organized when you don't know where to begin.

1. Customers First

Especially for small businesses, customers are the most important part of your business and it makes sense to prioritize them as you decide where to start organizing. Having inadequate customer service and support systems is going to cause a lot of problems as you try to grow your business, so it's crucial that you focus your organizing budget on getting that department in good shape.

While big businesses can afford supply chain consulting, you may be better off spending your budget on a good customer support software program. These programs frequently work by creating "tickets" that contain issues, allowing your customer support workers to check them off one by one in order of urgency. All the management of issues is up to the software, so you have more time to spend on other aspects of your business.

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2. A Focused Space

Depending on the size and shape of your small business, you might have your own office building, or you might be operating out of your garage. Whatever your situation is, it's important that your workspace and storage spaces are organized. Not only does it make your work more efficient, but having your space set up in a functional way is going to improve the headspace of everyone in it.

Working out of a space like a home office can make it difficult to feel the need to get organized, so you can get started by making sure that everything has its own place and can be put there easily. This can help avoid the clutter created by loose papers and objects that don't necessarily serve a specific purpose. Plus, once you know exactly what you have and where it is, you'll avoid wasting your budget buying the same stapler over and over again. 

3. Managed Finances

A big trap small businesses often fall into is being lax about keeping up with expense reports. It starts with the occasional office supply purchase that you pay for with your own credit card and snowballs into bigger purchases, like printers or computers. This isn't a path you want to go down, so it's important to be organized with your approach to making expense reports. There are tons of software programs that can help you keep track of purchases and transactions on a weekly basis, so you always know exactly what you've spent. When tax season arrives, you're going to be really glad you put the effort into getting your expenses in order.

4. Reducing Clutter

Any office that uses primarily paper documentation is going to run into issues when it comes to organization. If you have the space for big file cabinets and the time to organize them, that's one thing. But most small businesses won't have either and will end up with a jumbled mix of important documents and old, outdated ones. It can be hard to switch over to paperless operations, but in the end, it's going to help everyone to stay organized and know where everything is when they need it.

Getting a good scanner will make it easy to get documents onto your file-sharing system, and you can always keep a paper copy of extremely important ones in case of an emergency. Being properly organized as a business often means giving up old ways of doing things that are no longer serving you. These changes can make for a tough transition, but the rewards are going to far outweigh any initial inconvenience the new ways might cause you.