The positions costing your business the most

Upskilling roles to save money

For any modern business, data management is a critical part of a successful operation. Integrated and real-time business intelligence helps gather information on customers, analyses purchasing behaviour, as well as providing informed insight for strategic decision-making.

But what about the businesses still digging through spreadsheets and PDFs to process orders and manage their spending? Or worse yet, paper documents.

Well, a recent study on the manufacturing industry found nearly half of companies are still relying on spreadsheets, forms, or some kind of manual data entry.

The reality of this way of working? It’s expensive. And relying on old-fashioned paper-based invoice processing is costing businesses a lot of money every year. Almost $2.7 trillion a year, according to Goldman Sachs.

Average salary of a warehouse administrator: £23,594 per annum

Job duties included:

• Inputting and maintaining data on the system
• Processing paperwork for goods-in/despatch
• Arranging deliveries and delivery paperwork

Average salary of data entry clerk: £18,295 per annum

Job duties included:

• Inputting file details and thinning down files
• Data entry into excel spreadsheets
• Indexing and filing invoices

Average salary of a courier booker: £23,500 per annum

Job duties included:

• Filling supplier invoices, credit notes and delivery notes
• Processing shipping labels for returns
• Organising paperwork for daily deliveries

*All job descriptions and duties are taken from real job advertisements on indeed.com

Why these positions are costing your business money

Aside from including incredible mundane tasks for those involved, they’re repetitive, prone to error, and an inefficient way of working in today’s modern era of business.

Not only that, but being bogged down in boring tasks stops workers and employers from searching for new, better and cheaper ways to do things.

In fact, 92% of employees waste an average of eight hours a week trying to find the right data, losing up to a full day of productivity every week trying to locate information to serve their customers.

You can learn more about the cost of manual labour in here.

Eliminate data-entry tasks and regain time and money

From critical to everyday tasks, automation has the potential to streamline tasks across your entire business. Whether that’s your accounts, warehouse, or general day-to-day admin.

For example:

Before: 12 hours as an accounts data entry clerk each week can be spent managing credit control and invoicing via excel spreadsheets.

After (with automation): A workflow is created for specific groups to identify key customers who need attention – emails are automatically sent based on timings and certain criteria. Basic configurations are also put in place for invoicing to be a scheduled process, all based on specified rules, dates and times.

By automating and eliminating an array of tasks typically performed by warehouse administrators, data entry clerks or courier books, resources can be redirected back into your business. Whether that’s upskilling existing staff and redirecting them into new areas of the business, or absorbing these costs and embarking on your transition to business-wide automation.

Interested in discovering more ways to save costs in your business? Explore our latest resource to protecting profits and controlling costs for 2023.