How automation tools reduce business costs

The owners of any business strive for one thing: to increase profits by reducing costs. There are a lot of technologies that help to carefully use the available resources of the company. These include competent strategic management, process optimization, and the use of intelligent systems such as artificial intelligence and GPT chat.

In addition, many people are concerned about how quickly investments will pay off, for example, in opening or modernizing a retail outlet, creating an online store, updating and automating business processes, training staff, etc. 

Using special methods, you can quickly recoup your investments and optimize business costs. Automation is one of these methods that results in increased efficiency of company resources, sales growth, and business development. 

What does the payback period depend on?

Since each business is unique and has its own specific conditions, the payback period can vary significantly, depending on many factors:

• the volume of investments,

• geographical location of the business,

• innovative approaches to sales and management strategies,

• use of online sales,

• the number of products in the store,

• marketing planning,

• adaptation to changing market conditions and the country's macroeconomic environment.

Analyzing the costs of launching a business or improving it gives you an idea of how long it will take for your business to break even and whether you can increase its profitability by spending less money. 

Process automation is a quick way to reduce costs and increase business revenue

Specialized software, such as the Torgsoft accounting program, not only speeds up the return on investment but also saves the owner's money. How?

How much money does the owner lose without automation?

In the table below, we have provided conditional figures that show how the implementation of an accounting system helps to save money and time for trading in a boutique clothing store, optimize staff work, improve customer satisfaction, and ultimately strengthen the business.

*The minimum price for an item in the store. 

**The maximum price of the product.

Let us analyze some processes in more detail.

Acceptance or arrival of goods

This is the basic option of the accounting program, the starting point from which the order in the business begins. Posting of the goods base, or entering information about goods into a single system, helps to understand how many goods are available in the store and in the warehouse. Automated accounting allows you to avoid product shortages during the busy season or excess production and facilitate faster sales.

This is quite relevant for businesses that sell seasonal goods or popular products, such as clothing, accessories, books, pet supplies, art, etc.

If the boutique owner had continued to write down new arrivals in a notebook, she might not have taken into account that, for example, the women's dresses from a Polish manufacturer that she bought last year were lying in the warehouse and mistakenly bought them again. 

The same applies to re-accounting — checking availability, identifying shortages or excess goods in the warehouse, and comparing the actual quantity of goods with the data in the accounting program. 

If you don't take an inventory in the accounting program, you may again encounter mistakes: re-sorting, unreceived batches, unaccounted for defects or write-offs, fraud by customers or employees when selling or returning goods, misunderstandings with suppliers, and so on. 

Loyalty program

Using loyalty programs is an effective marketing tool for attracting and retaining an audience. Nowadays, few companies can afford to ignore this method. However, even those sellers who actively use it, but do so manually, sooner or later encounter mistakes or refuse additional loyalty tools, such as selling goods with discount or bonus cards.

Loyalty systems help to increase customer engagement and trust in a brand or store. As a result, the number of purchases and business profitability increase, according to some estimates, by 10-50%, depending on the type of promotion or bonus.

If Anna had not introduced repeat purchases for bonuses in her store, her store would have lost between UAH 5,000 and 15,000 in a month. 

Sales

In addition, a business can regularly lose money on uncontrolled or incorrectly set discounts, due to sales below cost, due to the accumulation of non-marketable or illiquid goods, incorrect pricing, sales past the cash register, errors in calculations, and fraudulent salespeople.

The Torgsoft accounting program will not allow such errors and inaccuracies in sales. For example, you can set the amount of a discount or promotion for a single product or group, for a certain amount or number of items in a check, and set the period of its validity. This way, you will know exactly which products were sold at what discount and avoid unnecessary expenses.

In addition, the program can control the sale of goods below cost or with a minimum markup.

Routine 

Owners can constantly lose money on routine work that takes up most of their time and energy. In addition to sales and customer service, you need to maintain agreements and settlements with suppliers, dealers, employees, take into account the costs of the outlet's life, etc. It is difficult and impractical to keep all this in your head, notebook or Excel spreadsheet.

What determines the cost of automation

The investment in the accounting program pays off quite quickly. The main thing is to take into account all the possible features and needs of the trading business at the beginning of the implementation of changes in order to choose the right tariff and options.

In the table, we have calculated the payback period of the investment in the accounting program and showed the average value of the profit that can be obtained as a result of automating a store or retail chain. 

***In the cost of automation, we did not include computers or laptops for installing the program.

Typically, the price of an accounting system depends on:

• the establishment or absence of business processes in the store. 

• the number of workstations, i.e. computers on which the accounting program will be installed. 

• needs, objectives, and size of the business.

For example, a small store with several departments and cash registers needs a starter automation package: 

► license for the accounting program, 

► basic retail equipment: barcode scanner, label and receipt printer for each cash register,

► additional equipment as needed: a data collection terminal, a banking terminal, a cash register (a payment transaction recorder required for the sale of fiscal goods and the submission of reports to the tax authorities). 

You may also need additional program options that work for store recognition, sales growth, and customer loyalty: 

► CRM system for working with the client base and sales, 

► sending mass mailings to customers via messengers and email,

► remote accounting via a mobile application, 

► the function of deleting statistics for closed periods, 

► archiving data to Google disk,

► payroll and motivation of salespeople, etc.

All these options and many other useful tools are implemented in the Torgsoft accounting program. You can learn more about the program's capabilities on the company's website, in the sections "Main Features", "User Support", "Prices", or consult a specialist and order trade automation by phone:

+38(067) 558 37 84

info@torgsoft.ua