It was recently demonstrated by a tour of ING. The administration is a part of operational management that takes (too) much time. The bookkeeping is a job that regularly remains until the last moment and then has to be processed immediately in the last 2 weeks of the quarter.
For the entrepreneur, the administration seems to be a necessary evil in which as little time as possible should be spent. A good development can be seen within accountancy. Where entrepreneurs have started to process the administrations in-house for a few years because of the costs, we now see a return movement in which the accountant will do the bookkeeping. However, the price is still under pressure and the need for efficiency is great.
Quality is better than quantity
The most important step towards efficiency is to minimize the risk created by the bookkeeper himself: the human error. Manual processing simply increases the risk of errors and variation in interpretation. The chance of error is especially increased when administrations have to be processed quickly. When the unavoidable annual accounts come along, the error must be detected with a magnifying glass. Time-consuming and, above all are unnecessary, that is why quality is better here than quantity. Of course, it can be done much faster, and there are now various solutions for this. A simple scan and recognition solution already ensures an accelerated workflow with fewer errors. But quantity is not yet quality.
Search through the Makro
There is already a great deal of time saved, for now, because those annual accounts, remember? There is always an extra piece of manual work and a job itself; because the invoices still have to be allocated cost centers and ledger accounts. And that per line. No problem, Makro falls under “Kitchen” and … oh yes, also “Office”. Mmm, that will be quite a job if that one supplies of coffee or tablets is searched for the dishwasher with the Makro receipt as an indication.
Article coding is key
That is why article coding makes the snowball effect that is called workflow really roll. Anton Boonstra, already stated the importance of good article coding in an article on logistics.nl. It is key, he says that it has to be all right from the start, then it’s too late. It is like an important pillar under a bridge that can no longer be placed or moved if the bridge is already over it. In short, creating a system in chaos is not going to work, there must be a system to guide the flow from the start. That happens top-down. From global work, via facility to warehouse, and in this way you rig up the database.
If this structure exists, then the item codes must of course be meaningful and not too long, otherwise it will still not work. But if you do it right, this will enormously speed up the workflow and the quality will increase. If you can immediately see where what is written, the annual accounts are not only a lot easier, but you can also respond more quickly to unnecessary costs that reduce the company’s profit. That starts with all the hours of profit that the accountant had spent on something that could have been done much faster for far too long.