Who’s the Boss? Her name is Betty Sue. She doesn’t have a title and if she did it wouldn’t matter anyway because she wears so many hats. She gets, opens, and distributes the mail, she represents your HR function, does payroll, and sometimes answers the phone and moon lights as your accountant just to name a few things. She is unappreciated, busy and spread thin. Not only does she go unappreciated the only feedback she gets is when she does something wrong. She started out with so much hope because nothing could be worse than the last place she worked. You were so glad she was hired because nobody could be as bad as your last office lady.
You look up one day and you realize she is the boss. She turns Burger King on you and has it her way, which you know little about what and how she is doing things because – let’s face it, you haven’t kept a close eye on the back office since Betty Sue took over. So the story goes, your role becomes break fix; you turn into the helicopter owner and when things go wrong you helicopter in and fix the issue at hand. Your relationship works because they need a job and you need accountability. To ensure the success of the relationship Betty Sue becomes the boss!
For example, you have no idea she is booking eighty journal entries to close the books each month when she only needs to record five journal entries to produce quality financials. You begin to sense that things aren’t exactly right when your CPA and banker points out obvious problems, so you hire your CPA to fix the books. But when your CPA tells you he can’t help you because Betty Sue is behind, you blow it off because you think your CPA is too expensive and promise your banker you will get it fixed. Then the nightmare truly begins when you get audited by the IRS and realize you expensed something you shouldn’t have. You’re charged outrageous fines and get on the IRS watch list. Since you don’t have the cash you reach out to your banker to get money to pay the IRS but you’re not approved because you don’t have timely and reliable financial statements. All this is out of pocket costs to you!
How do you get started fixing things? How do you get control of your business? How do you get a peaceful team that works for you with a smile? Fortunately, Go and Grow has a solution for you. The first step is to begin automating your processes. You also need to develop ways to make your business smarter and more efficient to reduce costs and increase productivity. Here are some examples:
- Eliminate cumbersome and time-consuming manual tasks such as: data entry, envelope stuffing, filing and check runs
- Pay bills online at a fraction of the time it takes to process and sign checks
- Automate customer collections
- Stop opening mail by having the vendor email the bill directly into the accounting software
- Reduce human error and increase accuracy with automated software
- Improve internal controls to reduce the risk of fraud
- Improve timely reporting of financial results
- Improve collaboration of your limited resources
Let Betty Sue help your employees and customers which will ultimately help you grow the company and have the peace of mind that your company is operating in a smarter and more profitable way. We can help you put the processes in place and become your back office at a much lower cost than you are paying today.
Call us at 972-202-8000 or email scott.bates@cornwelljackson.com.
