Say “Cheese!” May is National Photography Month.
Whether you do selfies, or Instagram, or take travel and family photos, this is a good time to expand your skills or to experiment with new photography techniques and subjects. You can enroll in a class, make a photo documentary of a day in the life of your family (or pet), or finally organize that giant archive of digital photos into an album.
And when you put your smartphone or camera down, apply what you’ve learned and take a careful “snapshot” of your business expenses.
Look at everyday expenses with a fresh perspective. A good photographer learns to “see” ordinary things in a new light. By the same token, managing your telecom and technology expenses requires real attention. It’s easy to fall into the “auto-pay” trap – but this month, make a resolution to look at every line in every invoice over a certain threshold amount and compare it to the same invoice from the prior month – we guarantee you will find some items to question, and some potential cost-saving opportunities.
Related Post: Faster is Better: The Need to Automate Data Analysis
Photo albums demonstrate the power of organization. A well-organized photo album tells a story. Well-organized expense and cost data do the same. Invest in tools that allow you to easily understand how expenses change over time and how major expense categories compare to each other.
Dashboards are worth a thousand words. Photography is about the power of the visual to communicate. This is something to keep in mind when it comes to expense management. Take the time to create visually friendly reports with simple graphs and tables that make it easier to review expenses more regularly and that helps you zoom in on the “few and critical” business metrics that matter to you.
There’s Always More to Learn. The best photographers seek out new skills to learn or new subject matter to explore – it keeps them excited and motivated. That same mindset can be applied to cost control. For example, in the world of telecom expense management, educating yourself on how to handle VAT charges is becoming more important for many businesses. And from a process standpoint, you can explore new offerings in the market that may improve the way you do things today. Are there manual processes you can automate? Are there tools that can help your team become more effective?
Upgrade your tools. Are you using the expense management equivalent of black and white film — i.e. manually updated spreadsheets? If so, take a look at Cloud Age Solution’s gpxcloud software. Built and launched as a cloud-native SaaS, gpxcloud is a flexible and powerful platform that provides visibility into and ongoing management of telecom expenses. It’s easy to use and it helps businesses unravel the chaos of telecom invoices and expense tracking through better data and automation.
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