I have come across a lot of businesses where the owners complain about their cash going missing (with the suspect most likely being the salesperson or other staff within their systems) or not knowing where their money has run off to. With some, it’s even clear they cannot account for how they’ve spent their business funds. Ah! In this time when money is scarce? Hmmn! Let me just keep quiet.
Before you start to blame people from your village for not letting your business move forward in Lagos, ask yourself – “Do I keep records?”
I am not talking about having 1,000 jotters with scattered records everywhere O! Who still keeps records in jotters? This is something I’ve found that’s still rampant.
Don’t get me wrong, Paper records are a good start but they are easily destroyed, plus you cannot access them from anywhere you are. Unless you want to be carrying a big book of sales records, everywhere you go.
auntyronke
I am talking about keeping records digitally
At most, what I’ve seen traders do is to use a tool like Google sheets or Microsoft Excel to keep records of their sales but HOLLUP! Do you know how hard that is?
It means you have to enter the details for every single transaction into your system manually. Normally, you ought to have different records for sales, customer details as well as the details of their orders, records of the money you spend on expenses for your business, raw materials, records of profit or loss – In fact, you need records for every single transaction in your business.
I don’t think I need to tell you how important these records are in business but I am always happy to go over these reasons again:
Records help you track your business progress –
If you have been spending more than you are gaining, if you make the most sales on a Saturday, if your sales have tripled since you introduced that new product – IT WILL ALL BE IN YOUR RECORDS.
You might argue that you can remember it by yourself but really, how accurate is your memory compared to records that you can see and vouch for? Also, how much can you even remember?
With records, you have data that will help you improve your business –
With data that your records provide you with, you can see what you are doing right and what you need to improve upon so that you can increase efforts on doing the right things and eliminate the things that you are doing that are not yielding any progress.
You will stop saying somebody is stealing your money –
I cannot overstate this! If you check, most of the times that you have panicked about losing money it’s simply because you forgot what you used it for. Even if you have staff, keeping records means that you have something to refer to when you start looking for money so that you can trace or pinpoint the exact time or transaction that the money went missing and find it.
Since we have both agreed that you need to keep records and we have also agreed that manually entering records is not feasible – how about a system that does it automatically for you?
I am talking about the eShop Kit which not only gives your business credibility by leveraging technology but also helps you keep records easily and without the stress of having to do it yourself.
It is a system that is so efficient you will wonder how you have survived without it! Once you begin to send orders through the eShop, all details concerning your sales, customer details, stock count and every other record are kept for you automatically. How cool is that?
auntyronke
Also, you can access these records from your phone anywhere and anytime. So if you are not sure about the information, you can easily just access all these records through your phone and ease your mind.
The eShop can do all these for you and more. Click here to learn more and cop yours now!
