Winter is melting away, and we are moving on to the next season. Spring means warmer weather, flowers blooming, and the start of baseball season. As good as all of that sounds, the start of spring is also the time to do some spring cleaning.

Your business office is the heart of your dealership. Every department is connected to the business office and because of that, a messy office can impact the rest of your store. Let’s talk through three ways you can dust off the cobwebs and tidy things up.

Clear out the paper storage.

Storing paper documents onsite is probably the leading cause of clutter in dealerships. You may store deals on shelves in the business office, in banker boxes in the cage on top of the parts department, or maybe in a storage building out back. Not only does paper take up a lot of space, but consider how much time it takes trying to find a specific document. Every audit can mean you’re stuck spending hours digging through boxes. If that document is lost, it’s going to cost you around $220 to replace, including employee time. Instead, consider a digital storage process, which would save you storage space and time spent looking for deals. Plus, you don’t have to worry about deals getting lost or damaged, leading to an overall more efficient and cleaner process.

Tidy up your reporting process.

Reporting is one of the most time-consuming, manual tasks in the business office and can be one hard mess to clean up. Often times, numbers can be inconsistent across reports, or the reports are using old, outdated data that leaves your dealership open to errors and misinformation. Not only that, it can take an employee hours to build all the reports needed, instead of having them focused on other important job functions. In order to have a transparent view of your dealership’s financial health, along with accurate and timely data, take a look at digital reporting. Look for a tool with forecasting so you can catch profit leaks earlier and keep reporting processes nice and tidy.

Wipe away manual mailing processes.

Manual mailing processes cause problems all throughout your business office. The cost of postage and envelopes alone can add up, but what if you factor in the time it takes employees to print and stuff each envelope? There is also no guarantee your mail makes it on time to the customer or vendor. And these manual processes give you no control over your cash flow. Lost envelopes, late payments, and wasted time all cause giant headaches.  You should have processes in place that allow you to send documents to customers and receive and make payments electronically, streamlining your A/P and A/R processes.

A squeaky clean business office.

The key to a squeaky clean business office is having technology that helps you complete tasks more efficiently and saves you money. By implementing processes like digital storage, you can eliminate boxes and wasted employee time. With real-time reporting, you can have a more accurate representation of where your dealership’s financial health stands. And finally, with electronic A/P and A/R processes, you have better control of your cash flow. With the right processes in place, your dealership will be squeaky clean. Put the broom and mop down and let the business office clean itself with more digitized, streamlined processes.

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