Managing a job often takes up as much, or probably even more time, than actually doing the job itself! Whether you’re sending jobs out to your team, recording time sheets or chasing up unpaid invoices, it’s all taking up your time, and in the end taking money from the bottom line. However, by automating your job management process, you can save you and your business, time and money.

Here are our tips for the impact it can have:

1) Paper and Printing

With job automation software such as Okappy, everything is cloud-based, meaning it can be accessed wherever you are with a huge reduction in the amount of printing your business will need to do. It might seem like a minor saving, but in the long run, reducing paper and printing costs, can have a huge impact. It also demonstrate a professional, contemporary and environmentally friendly side to your business. It has a knock on effect, reducing the amount of filing and space needed to store paperwork, resulting in a much more organised and streamlined approach. If you’ve been wanting to make more space in your office for a while, this could be the solution!

2) Duplication of Work

It’s amazing how much duplication happens at work without you ever realising it. It might be entering duplicate information into different applications or entering team job sheets into more than one system, then filing away. Job automation really helps you to look at your process from the outset, see how it can be improved, and efficiencies achieved. Okappy provides invoice management, so you can immediately raise an invoice once a job is complete and be able to see at a glance who has paid and who hasn’t. Once an invoice is raised, this information can be integrated with accounting software such as Xero or Kashflow, saving you time and avoiding duplicate information.

3) Chasing Invoices

Chasing invoices is without a doubt the biggest downside to owning your own business. However, it’s essential to keep your business moving. Job management software can really help with this, making the whole process much smoother. Once a job is complete, you can raise an invoice straight away, without having to wait for your paper job sheet to come back to the office. The sooner you raise an invoice, the sooner you get paid. It’s easier for them to pay too, as rather than receiving a paper invoice that they’ll need to remember to pay through a bank transfer or by cheque, they’ll receive their invoice electronically with regular reminders if the invoice remains unpaid. With Okappy, even better, customers can pay directly within the platform.

4) Fuel Costs

It was reported this week that the happy days of low fuel costs will soon be over as there’s a hike on the way! Whether that happens or not, you need to keep an eye on your fuel costs. Job automation can help as you can analyse how long journeys take and plan out the most effective route. Okappy’s Radar function generates reports so you can see where time was wasted, allowing you to identify heavy traffic spots that your team can avoid to allow you to save fuel costs.

5) Improving Communication

Job management software can also help to improve communication between you, your team and your clients. Being able to confidently tell a customer where their electrician or plumber is located, for example, makes you and your business more trustworthy to their eyes, and could hopefully lead to more bookings! The ability to send jobs quickly and easily to your team via job management software, as well as giving them the chance to update it throughout the day, means that less time and money is spent on repeated phone calls to update on job progress, and more time can be spent on making money!

6) Maximising Job Opportunities

Chasing invoices, duplicating work, trying to get in touch with your field workers, all results in one thing – lost opportunities! Whilst you’re in the office battling through paperwork, you could be out earning on a job, or pitching for new business. Job automation gives you peace of mind. Knowing that everything is being taken care of, allows you to focus on growing your business.
Keeping costs down and profits up, is of course, the aim of any business, and job automation can really make a difference. Considering job management software like Okappy could be just the cost saving that you really need to drive growth throughout 2016.
You can find out more about our job management here.
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