5 Reasons Small Business Owners Should Delegate Bill Paying Responsibilities
Being a small business owner means you’re likely wearing multiple hats to ensure your business runs smoothly. From sales to account receivables to professional development and networking, as well as delivering the product or service your business provides, you’re busy! As your company grows, it’s time to take a step back and see what makes sense to keep on your plate, and what makes sense to outsource. One of those activities may be paying those monthly bills. Here are 5 reasons small business owners should delegate bill paying responsibilities.
The desire to do it all… and why you shouldn’t
Delegating work to others frees up more time and mental energy for you. Why is that so important? Trying to do everything yourself could actually hinder your company’s growth. Entrepreneur wrote an article quite a while back that’s still relevant today, “Work On–Not In–Your Business”. The article explains how learning to let go is the key to business growth. Once more menial (yet important!) tasks like bill paying are removed from your daily activities, you can safely disengage long enough to provide the vision essential to your company’s long-term growth. If you’re not at the point of hiring employees to do this, a professional bill management company can be the perfect solution to delegate bill paying. Still not sure it makes sense to let go of tasks like bill payment? Here are a few illustrations to drive the point home.
Free up your time to focus on the bigger picture
As we touched on in the text above, freeing up your time from more basic tasks allows you to step back and look at the bigger picture that is your company. Having the time and focus to be able to really think about where your company is now and where you want it to go takes a substantial amount of effort. If you’re tied up sitting in front of a stack of bills sorting, paying each one, that’s precious time that can be better spent focusing on the vision of your company.
Too little time leads to too many mistakes
We’ve all been there; trying to do too many things at once when we should be focusing on the task at hand. Since bill paying seems like such a basic task, oftentimes busy entrepreneurs will multitask bill paying during phone calls or other activities. The result is oftentimes mistakes or oversights because you weren’t focused on the task at hand. That can lead to incorrect or missed payments, which can have unfortunate results for your business.
Bill accuracy leads to better company financials
When managing your company’s bills, do you pay as they’re received? Pay once a month? Once a week? Do you take the time to examine each bill for consistency and accuracy? Who has time for that!? If you’re like most extremely busy small business owners, you get into the habit of assuming those monthly bills are correct, but errors happen. If you’re sending off a payment without reviewing for accuracy, how much lost revenue is that each year? While discrepancies may be small, they add up. That can impact your company’s financials. Better to delegate bill paying to someone else!
Saving time dealing with vendors
Should you be fortunate enough to catch a billing error without it slipping past you, now you’re on the hook to pick up the phone or hop online to get the error fixed. That’s not easy and it’s extremely time-consuming. AARP recently wrote an article about the difficulty of reaching customer service online or by phone. One key takeaway? Have patience…. a LOT of patience because no matter how you reach a vendor, it’s going to take time. As a busy business owner, few have time for this! On the other hand, a bill management company will monitor recurring bills and contact vendors if a bill has not been received on time. What a time-savings!
Less paperwork provides more mobility
While many bills can now be reviewed and handled online, there are many that still come by snail mail and require a check. If your small business requires you to travel or be out of the office for an extended period of time, that means bills pile up while you’re out. However, if you use a bill management service, you have the option of monitoring all bill paying activities no matter where you are. You still have complete control over bill paying without the hassle of the activity.
Being a small business owner is a lot of work, yet outsourcing responsibilities can be a tough concept to grasp. Understanding why you should delegate bill paying responsibilities can help you see the value of taking this key step. Have questions about how bill management services work? Bill Simplicity has answers! Contact us to learn more about how we can assist with your bill paying needs.