As the year comes to a close, planning for the next year has taken a front-seat focus for organizations. Through each of the minor decisions made at strategy meetings, there’s always one big question that needs to be answered: how can we do better next year? One of the best ways your organization can improve performance is through investing in smarter technology solutions. Though certain technologies may not solve every business challenge you face, they’re a big step in the right direction.

Pairing significant cultural changes alongside technological advancements is also necessary to ensure long-term success. You can’t simply require a new project management software to be utilized if you aren’t going to take the time to train the team on how to best use it or implement new communication strategies to support it.

We cover some beneficial ways to invest in different branches of your organization in the New Year, though there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for every organization, these tips can easily be applied to any business, large or small.  

Invest in HR

Human Resources is what keeps your organization running smoothly day-to-day, and it’s worth it to invest in solutions designed to benefit them. For planning out the next year, it’s crucial to keep an eye on HR trends. While certain specific trends may not make sense for your organization, many of the concepts can still apply. For example, you may not be able to implement flexible working hours but consider allowing for floating lunch breaks, allowing employees to choose to work through their lunch hour in exchange for taking an hour later in the day to go to the gym or for a walk.

As for investing in smart technology, consider each of your HR processes and what they entail. Start with something you’re heavily involved in, such as hiring and onboarding. Does it require an excess of paperwork, is time-consuming, is it a point of frustration for HR and new hires alike?

A simple solution is investing in an advanced web forms product that can support each step of the hiring process. Consider working to develop forms for the job application, background check, and onboarding (including government forms and benefit elections). Just overhauling this one process can cause a positive ripple effect that will allow for more time and resources to

Invest in Accounting

While trends don’t dictate the state of accounting for most organizations, it’s still crucial to monitor where your specific industry is going. Take time at the end of this year or beginning of the new year to research some of your top customers (or top vendors) and see what changes they may be making. Is your largest customer investing more into AI? That’s a clear sign that your old methods of accepting POs and verifying deliveries may not cut it anymore.

In fact, focusing on your order process is crucial to ensuring ongoing success in the new year. Similar to in HR, taking a look at your process and determining where exactly the gaps are is the first step in determining what solution will work best for your organization. For example, your picking, packing, and delivery processes may run smoothly, but orders are stalled due to a messy ordering process. Or you may have the opposite issue and be unable to send out orders correctly and efficiently. The common denominator with such problems is that organizations often rely on paper and manual processes within their AP or AR processes.

Our solutions help you shorten the cash to order lifecycle, help you get paid faster and improve your customer relationships. Regulatory compliance adds another labor-intensive layer to the processes further impacting your profits. Never lose or misplace a file again. Spend less time managing and responding to audits.  Accounting document management and AP automation can help you reduce costs and increase productivity.

We help you quickly and securely capture, process, and route AP invoices, sales orders, credit documents, and collection information automatically reducing repetitive and error-prone manual processes. Our configurable document management and business process automation solutions provide advanced front-end imaging technology, OCR/automated data capture, EDI capabilities, automated workflow and seamless ERP integration. A secure web-based interface provides access to documents from anywhere in the world, at any time. Our solutions are affordable and rapid deployment allows you to recover your return on investment faster.

Invest in Records Management

Is security a priority for your organization? While you may be concerned about hackers and your digital property being at risk, physical theft still accounts for $1.1 trillion in loss for organizations. If you’re still holding physical copies of crucial files on desks, in drawers or supply closets, it’s time to reconsider how you maintain your records.

With a digital records management solution, employees get what they need faster with a secure single repository for records. You and your employees can easily manage all of your records through their entire lifecycle while freeing up your staff to focus on more valuable tasks.

A secure web-based interface provides access the ability to freeze specific documents due to litigation, apply a retention category, which allows the purging or movement of document types based on a date/time or event. PiF’s records management product comes standard with automatic retention scheduling, meaning you don’t need to constantly comb through and clean out files.

These are just a few ways to focus on your organization in 2019, how are you making improvements to your business in the upcoming year? If automation and document management are priorities for you next year, give us a call at 888.934.4443 or email marketing@piftech.com.