30 Cost Cutting Ideas & Money Saving Tips For Your Business

When large companies save costs, they can properly allocate resources and run company operations. Irrespective of your company size or industry, saving costs are essential. It safeguards your financial bottom line and provides you insight into the current financial state of your business. A report by McKinsey stated that most business categories saw more than 10% growth in their online customer base. This shows that there are strategies that large companies use to generate and save costs. Using Skype or other web-based conference calling solutions can save your business money, if you’ve been relying on traditional long-distance calling. Some services allow you to screen share easily, or even share a recording of a call later.

Still, we strongly advise you to consult a tax professional to help you navigate tax laws and policies for your business. In fact, when interviewing business owners for our Cost of Starting a Business research, “hiring an accountant” came up repeatedly as advice to new entrepreneurs. Normally, small business owners have to negotiate rates themselves with each carrier individually. At Shopify, we recognize that shipping is an extremely challenging aspect of running a small ecommerce business, so we’ve given our customers a leg up with Shopify Shipping. Right now, that means that Canadian merchants get negotiated rates with Canada Post, and US merchants get negotiated rates with DHL Express, UPS, and USPS. You’ll want to get familiar with Google Analytics to see how your website is performing and where you’re losing customers.

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Once you’ve found ways to save each month, where are you keeping that money? If it’s just sitting in your checking account, you could be missing out. If you don’t need it immediately to cover expenses, put your money into an interest-bearing business account, such as a business money market account. However, if you’re considering putting some money into savings, take a look into interest rates first. Depending on what interest rate a savings account offers, it may make sense to put that money towards paying off a high-interest loan. Whatever you do, be sure that you’re maximizing your profits and savings.

• You may also hear of these sorts of savings as cost reductions or ‘hard’ cost savings.
• Learn everything you can about marketing and public relations for your industry, and make sure you’re putting your best foot forward when you promote and talk about your business.
• Ian Aronovich, ofGovernmentAuctions.org, shares that his firm was able to negotiate better prices on everything from office supplies to the phone bill.
• While this energy savings does not always lead to a 10% to 50% reduction in costs, it still can be quite significant.

It eliminates the expense that goes into printing checks and lowers the risk of fraud. This is a major benefit since 60% of all fraud incidents within a business involve employees, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. It’s no surprise that banks are looking to squeeze more revenue out of fees to make up for all the new regulatory changes.

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Hiring a PR firm can be very costly, and if you’re passionate and knowledgeable, you could be your own spokesperson. Especially with other businesses, bartering might seem old-school but can definitely still be effective. If you need a good or service and have something of value to offer in return, this could be a good route. It’s always tempting to buy the name brand, but it’s rarely worth the money.

All of the things on the cost-savings list should be monetary measured by an analyst or project manager, taking extra care not to underestimate costs or overstate benefits. Compiling a complete list of all the costs and benefits related with the project or choice should be the first step in a cost-savings analysis. Rather than paying for employees who sit idle when business is slow, consider hiring temporary employees to handle surges in business. Whatever the case, it’s imperative to never pay interest, and this could be done by automating your bill payments (see Tip 8!) or cutting back on your expenses. Typically, it’s because we may have paid a bill a few days late or we missed paying a bill for an entire month. It could be because we submitted our income tax return too late, forcing a substantial interest amount.

He believes its important to set realistic expectations of employees. Dont ask for ideas about saving on the cost of construction if thats not their area of expertise, he says. Link the expected activities from the employee to areas where they really can make an impact. You need to translate the business case for cost cutting into terms that are meaningful to all employees, Gibson says. And that may require different translations for different functions or groups or levels within the organization. Your workers may have effective cost-cutting ideas – but bringing them to the surface requires solid employee communication and engagement skills. As with auto and homeowners insurance, “many insurance carriers offer price breaks when small business owners purchase multiple policies at the same time,” Jonas said.

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The high rent on a central street may not be necessary if your business can shift its commerce online, or you may take advantage of new infrastructure by moving closer to a public transit facility. If your business generates unavoidable waste, consider if another business or organization could use those materials.

Let’s review some useful cost-saving ideas for the workplace. Close to year-end, schedule a tax-planning meeting with your accountant to shift income and expenses. For example, shift receivable income into the next year to decrease this year’s taxes. Your accountant will be the best person to advise you.

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A big mistake that lots of business owners make is spending way too much on marketing. For example, they might be paying out thousands of dollars a month on paid ads, or giant billboards spaces.

If your business is able to be set up for remote work, you can downsize your office space by not having all your employees in at the same time. Sign up to ZoomShift’s scheduling software to help create work schedules for each employee with ease. The more you can cost reduction strategies business do for your business without having to hire a staff, the more money you save on payroll expenses such as benefits and payroll taxes. Consider utilizing independent contractors for positions, such as Internet webmaster, technical writer or customer service.

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Ask them where they’re feeling overtaxed, and tell them where you would be willing to live with less. Take a look at where you spend resources on the off chance that certain events might arise. Have the events actually not occurred in the past five years? If they were to occur, would they be embarrassing but not very costly? If you’ve answered yes to either question, you’re probably wasting those resources. Finally, you’ll want to look back through the past three budget cycles to discover where your department proposed productivity-enhancing suggestions that required small investments. They may have been rejected because of constraints or other priorities (this often happens, for example, when initiatives require systems programming and IT’s resources are tied up elsewhere).

Merchandise that doesn’t sell costs you money in terms of storage space, taxes and handling. It also results in lost sales by limiting the space for new .net framework 3.5 items that are in demand by consumers. If you have slow-selling items, reduce their prices and place them in a bargain sales area of your establishment.

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You can link to offers on your website that capture email signups (e.g. 15% discount for signing up), or use your social media accounts to host a free giveaway in exchange for contact information. You can even start doing this pre-launch with your “coming soon” page. In our Cost of Starting a Business research, we found that businesses who spent more on marketing in their first year earned less revenue. As a rule of thumb, you’ll want to spend between 5% and 8% of your total budget on marketing in your first year. Startup marketing is tricky, especially if resources and expertise are limited. And even if resources aren’t limited, pumping money into paid ads doesn’t guarantee you sales. For starters, take charge of your personal Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn pages letting your network know of your new business venture, what help you might need, and what you’re offering in return.

Group chats can clear up issues without having to interrupt the entire team’s day. You might still need a core team of full-time employees to do the day-to-day work of operating your business.

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It will also increase efficiency and profits and reduce its environmental effect. As a conglomerate, embracing LEAN management should be one of the top priorities to effectively cost-save and maximize profits.

You can also rank each overhead item from most effective to least and draw the cutoff at the point you consider acceptable. This same standard should be applied to many activities not traditionally recognized as overhead. Line supervisors and senior executives may not like being classified with finance and HR staffers, but for this purpose, they should be. If much of your business is conducted at restaurants or you find yourself driving to clients’ offices, make sure you take those deductions. If you entertain clients or potential clients to discuss a current or future project, you can deduct a portion of your entertainment costs. To qualify for this deduction, you must maintain a log of entertainment-related expenses you plan to deduct. For mileage, you can deduct 37.5 cents per mile in 2004.

It’s not only a perk, and cost saver, but a natural productivity incentive. “Retailers like WalMart outsource their data entry work of converting shopping bills into e-format. They choose to outsource because it’s a smart way to run the non-core activities by saving huge time,” says Vinoth, CEO of Apoyo Corp . If you would rather keep employment in the states, you can consider using college students or parents who are looking to take on a few hours of work while the kids are in school. “When you have a little more time than money, then consider making yourself the expert in your content marketing,” says Stephanie Parks, Founder of DermWarehouse.com. Find experts in your industry by looking through industry publications, interview them either via email, video or phone and then simply publish the interview.

Employing such professionals increases productivity and ensures the right allocation of resources. Reviewing and renegotiating contracts annually helps in reducing the cost of goods. Supplies account for a larger portion of your budget than you might imagine. Though having the best pens and the highest-quality paper might seem important, it’s surprising how much money you can save by making small changes. Taking your time to find out what you can cut will help you eliminate unnecessary costs without impacting your operations too drastically.

By balancing yourbudgetand employing the necessary cost-cutting ideas, you can better improve your bottom line. By promoting remote strategies, even if it’s just one or two days a week, you’ll find tremendous cost-savings. Plus, employees who work from home tend to be more productive and clock in more hours.