When you see a lean phase on the horizon for your startup, there’s a great deal that you must do to tighten up its finances and reinvigorate employee engagement. A number of mobile technologies offer quick and convenient ways to boost efficiency.
Use your mobile device for greater financial awareness
Using your bank’s online banking app can help save time. Banking apps accept scanned images of checks. No one needs to run to the bank anymore, not even to deposit a check. Scanned checks also result in faster collection than with physically deposited paper checks.
Expense tracking apps help businesses keep track of expenses made by employees on the road. These apps let employees scan their receipts in. Not only does doing this free employees of the hassles involved in keeping track of scraps of paper, it makes sure that no business expense is overlooked, and helps with tighter accounting.
Mobile apps can be a terrific resource for businesses that need to track employee hours or keep track of their physical locations. If you have delivery drivers and other people whose responsibilities require them to stay on the road a lot, using time tracking apps instead of clocks at the office can help minimize indiscipline. For instance, it can put an end to buddy punching and proxy attendance practices.
GPS employee tracking apps can be useful for even tighter oversight. They can help make sure that you know where exactly your employees are at any given time.
Use mobile technology to improve employee efficiency
Businesses experiencing a rough patch do not typically invest in new equipment. Inexpensive productivity boosters, however, are worth making an exception for. They can help both with morale and efficiency. If you haven’t put affordable productivity boosters in your employees’ hands already, these ideas can help.
Smart pens: While Evernote and other note-taking apps do let employees capture ideas and inspiration, they work only on mobile phones and tablets. Ideas need to be captured on laptops and computers too. Smart pens such as models by Sky connect to computers, and help employees become for more efficient recording ideas.
Portable scanners: Certainly, phones can click pictures of documents and turn them into PDFs. For higher-quality captures, however, it’s always useful to carry around a portable bar scanner. Portable printers can be even more useful. The ability to hand out printed documents and proposals to business contacts can help boost business. Products such as the Polaroid Zip weigh only a couple of hundred grams.
Combination laptops: Combination 2-in-1 laptop devices such as the Lenovo Yoga and the Microsoft Surface are spectacular productivity boosters, and are cost-effective as well. Employees equipped with these devices do not need to fuss with two different pieces of equipment.
There’s a great deal more possible
If yours is a retail business, equipping every customer-facing employee with a mobile card scanner such as Square’s card processor can be a great way to check customers out in an efficient way.
While some businesses try the BYOD approach to equipping themselves with the latest in mobile technology, it tends to cause problems with poor standardization. Yet, three out of four small businesses today say that mobile technologies are critical to their business processes. A close look at investing in this technology can pay off.
Lauren Palmer is a business woman who has made it her job to see others succeed. Passionate about using technology to grow a business, her articles share some of her top tips for getting a business online and running at full speed ahead!