Use your Accounting Software to Boost Sales
If you thought your accounting software was just for tracking income and expenses, you’re losing out on an opportunity to improve your bottom line. Your accounting software can do so much more, and if used correctly, could boost your sales.
By taking advantage of insights provided by your financial reporting, you’ll benefit from a more informed approach to marketing and customer service – and by making the most of all the ways your software can improve productivity you can take meaningful action to increase profits.
“If you are already paying for accounting software, pay to understand how to use it. How to really use it. You will never regret the investment.”
So here are some insights you can get from your accounting software:
1. Understand your cash cows. If you setup your accounts properly in your software, when running monthly reports you can start to see the spending behaviors of your customers. Which products/services are flying out the door and which require more investigation. If you had items which were not selling, wouldn’t you want to know that sooner rather than later? Likewise, if products are popular – you need to take full advantage of that.
2. Marketing insights. Your accounting system can track what your customers are buying and what products they are interested in, and what time of year they are likely to buy. So you are basically sitting on a gold mine of information which enables you to re-target these customers in your email marketing campaigns. Marketing directly to the clients who tend to hire you for a particular service is a much more effective way to make sales than approaching your customers with a one-size-fits-all email campaign or in-store promotion.
2. Who is your best customer? Reporting capabilities built in to your accounting software can show you who your best customers are. And once you know that detail – what the heck are you doing to keep them happy? Are these people on your Christmas card list, are you asking them for referrals, are you getting testimonials. If these customers love you, are repeat customers and are your dream customer, use that to your advantage to attract more dream customers (i.e. – their friends!). Ask and you shall receive.
3. Record conversations and notes. Kind of like “Big Brother is Always Watching” – but in a good way. Imagine if you have a really shitty client – and you could write a little note in the system saying this exact thing. Next time they try to engage your services, you are fully aware of the history (perhaps their inability to pay), and you are armed with all the information you need. Right at your fingertips. BOOM. No more engaging shitty clients again.
4. Identify the icebergs. Imagine what would have happened if the Titanic knew where the icebergs were and could avoid them? Well, apart from missing out on singing “My heart will go on”, it would mean the ship would not have sunk. Same deal in your business. If you know where money is leaking each month, you can plug the leaks, saving your hard earned cashola to put into growing the business instead.
5. Free up your precious time. One of the great things about accounting software is how much time you’ll save by automating processes like invoicing, bank reconciliations and payroll. But you need to be using the software to its best ability to streamline how much data entry you are doing. (You do realise we do training sessions on accounting software, both remotely and in person. Click here to find out more). Get the system to do all the grunt work. By getting more efficient, you’ll have more time to touch base with customers and find new clients. BINGO.