Admin hacks: 10 ways to an efficient insolvency practice!
So you want to make your Insolvency Practice more efficient, where do you start I hear you cry! Why – with administration hacks of course!
For me, September always seems like the start of something new. It’s a throwback to my time as a Primary School teacher where September (even more so than January) was the start of the New Year and when I would make my new year’s resolutions.
As an ex-teacher, I’m a sucker for a good admin hack. Something that turns my to do list into a to done list faster than you can say procrastination. Most importantly, admin hacks shouldn’t cost the earth.
In fact, a good admin hack should save you money as well as time, it should make your company more efficient and free up time for doing what you do best.
I’ve spent my time collating the 10 best Admin hacks of 2020 in an attempt to save you time and money and make your Insolvency firm more efficient.
Here are 10 admin hacks to make your Insolvency Practice more efficient.
- Online Franking
- Tidy office
- Go paperless
- Time management
- Set up templates
- 2 minute jobs
- Track your time
1) Online Franking
Let’s get this one out of the way nice and early. Our favourite admin hack is Postworks. Postworks is an Online Franking company that can save you time and money.
Gone are the days of having to stuff all of your circulars by hand and trips to the post office (or traipsing back to the office) in the winter days are a thing of the past for our IPs.
Simply sign into Postworks’ easy to use platform and drop your letters into your online Postbox.
Postworks will then print your letters, put them into envelopes and hand them over to Royal Mail for you the same day (and it all costs less than a stamp).
This is the new way of sending your letters faster, quicker and cheaper – no matter how you currently send mail.
2) Tidy Office
Whilst it might not quite class as an “admin hack”, a tidy office (or home-office) equals a tidy mind. Keeping everything in its place and tidy is a sure fire way to free up time and man hours.
If everything has its place and unnecessary clutter is cleared away, less time will be wasted searching for things that you actually need.
By investing time 5 S’ing your office space, you will be improving the health and safety and efficiency of your office space for years to come
3) Go Paperless
Filing cabinets are a thing of the past. There is no reason to hold onto hard copies of almost all documentation.
Granted, you probably want to keep hold of your marriage certificate and the deeds to your house amongst a few other bits.
But otherwise, get rid!
Instead, keep electronic copies of documents, letters, contracts and more.
By using a system like Google Drive or Virtual Cabinet you are making all of your documents easy to find with just a few clicks of the mouse. What is more, these documents can be accessed from anywhere in the world, as long as you have access to a computer and the internet.
You’ll also find a service like Virtual Cabinet will integrate with other software that you may use freeing up your time even more.
There’s also no need to open your post anymore. An easy administration hack which is bound to save you time is Postworks Receive. Postworks offers a service that will open and scan your incoming mail and provide you with a smart, digital copy using OCR technology.
It’s time to mute all of those notifications.
Yes I mean your emails, Slack, Teams and even Lync (if you’re really behind the times). Set aside time to check these and the rest of the time, disconnect.
In this world of instant messaging and instant notifications, a busy person is constantly bombarded with bleep after bleep after bleep interrupting the task that they are on.
Manage your time well by setting aside time to deal with these and the rest of the time… turn off the interruptions you’ll find that you are suddenly more efficient than you have ever been before, especially if you are working from home.
5) Time Management
Spending a few minutes to plan out your day will save you hours later on. Make it clear what jobs you have to do and order them according to urgency.
One method you could use is the “Eisenhower Matrix” or the “Urgent/Important Matrix”. Deciding what things are urgent and important allows you to prioritise your day effectively, and shows you what you can delegate.
We like to use Trello to plan out my day. For us, it is the online equivalent to post-it notes or a list and allows me to work collaboratively with my team to make sure everything gets done.
You may want to use your own tool or even index cards to help you keep on top of your tasks.
However you choose to do it, keeping on top of your task list will make sure you use your time efficiently.
6) Set up Templates
It may be for a letter that you send regularly or a report that you produce every month. By creating a template where the data can just be inserted through the merge function, you’ll speed up the time it takes to send the mailing.
Mail merges aren’t necessarily just for merging addresses either. You can merge anything! Data, appointment times and even grades if you’re producing a school report.
It’s an incredibly useful administration hack.
There are some sector specific options that will obviously carry a cost but may be something worth considering if you use a variety of standard letter templates frequently.
For the Insolvency market, IPS Turnkey is the most popular template software available and is used by many firms to improve efficiency (there is also a great integration with Postworks available too).
Wherever you can, automate.
Regular tasks can often be automated through different software or scheduling. Setting up repeating invoices to be taken by direct debits seriously reduces the workload of your accounts team (which for small business owners, may also be the IT Technician and CEO).
Where possible, take advantage of integrations within software that you already use. A quick Google search will allow you to see where integrations already exist which will save you time.
Postworks also offers Postbox Print ™ which means that you can send letters from your computer just by selecting print. All of these little time saver administration hacks soon add up.
You’ll find that there are so many jobs you are doing which would better be done by someone else.
Using an “Eisenhower Matrix” anything that is urgent and not important is easily delegate-able.
Make use of the people around you and don’t carry all of the burdens yourself. Within a business, one of your most useful hires may be an administrator who can take away all of those jobs that are keeping you from what you do best.
9) 2 Minute Jobs
This is probably my favourite hack, I call this the quick win.
You will have so many jobs that fall under the “quick wins”.
They may not be urgent or important but they do need to get done eventually. Be it replying to an email, ordering some new stationery or granting (or denying) permissions on your internal systems. These tasks are usually taking up space in your inbox.
Mark them in your inbox as quick wins and whenever you have a spare 10 minutes, do a few of these and get them ticked off that list!
You’ll be surprised at how many tasks you can do in 2 minutes if you really set your mind to it.
10) Track how you use your time
Finally, by tracking the time you spend during your day you can see where you are spending the majority of your time. It can help to show if you are spending your time effectively.
If you find yourself spending a large amount of time on low value tasks, you can identify these and put a solution into place. This will help you streamline your day and make you more efficient.
Admin hacks – check! What next?
There are many different ways to improve your efficiency and productivity in the workplace.
All of these administration hacks are designed to challenge you to streamline your working methods and create a more efficient working culture.
If you’re ready to make the first step to super-efficiency, Postworks offers an online postage service that makes it easy to securely post your appointment letters.
Drag and drop your completed letter into Postworks and we’ll do the rest.
Call our friendly team now on 0370 334 1516 or click here to arrange a 10 minute demo.