The guide
Where the time goes
Most office tasks have a better version. These pages describe common ones, why they cost more than they appear, and what still needs a person afterward. They're kept general because every operation is different. These are possible challenges, not a description of your business, and some should be left exactly as they are. Scan for the one that sounds like yours.
Each page describes one task, one way it usually goes wrong, and what still needs a person afterward. Pages link to each other where the same problem shows up in more than one place.
Typing things in twice
- Invoices that arrive by email are sometimes retyped into an accounting systemThe typing is the smaller cost. The delay is the larger one.
- Handwritten worksheets that come back from the fieldThe paper is often the right tool. The retyping is the problem.
- Forms a customer fills in, that somebody types up afterwardThe customer is waiting inside the gap between the form and the record.
- Supplier price lists that arrive as documents and get typed into a quoting sheetQuoting from a stale cost loses money on jobs you win.
- Business cards and lead sheets collected away from the officeA new contact's value decays from the moment it is created, and it decays fast.
- Information sitting in a portal that somebody has to remember to downloadThe completeness of the record depends on somebody's memory.
- The same business details updated in many placesChange the hours once. Then change them everywhere else.
Reports, spreadsheets and systems
- The sync between two systems that nobody is watchingThe failure is invisible because the work is.
- The spreadsheet that does the work the system doesn'tA reasonable answer to a real need.
- The weekly report built by hand from several exportsThe same steps, every week, by the same person.
- Two reports that disagree on the same numberThey may be counting different things.
Billing and getting paid
- Completed work that never reaches the billing queueFinished work can be absent from the invoice list.
- Approved extra work that never reaches the invoiceApproval, completion, and billing need separate checks.
- Finished work that is waiting on something before it can be billedThe waiting pile has no alarm.
- Time-based charges nobody is countingNobody wrote down when the clock started.
- Finding out which jobs made money, a month after they finishedBy the time the answer arrives, more of the same mistake has been made.
Payments and the books
- Matching payments to invoices by handThe unmatched remainder becomes permanent.
- One deposit that covers many jobsThe bank balance can be right while the job-level picture is wrong.
- Money received before it is earnedThe software picks a default, and nobody checks which one.
- Money that comes with conditionsThe terms are in a letter. The books do not know.
- The list of where each payment landsNobody wrote down why each payment goes where it does.
Quotes and bids
Inventory, orders and equipment
- Packing slips and delivery confirmations that get filed and forgottenThe document is the proof, and its value shows up only when challenged.
- The inventory count that never matches the systemCorrecting the system to match the count erases what the count found.
- Ordered, received, and billed: three records that rarely meetEach record is right. Nobody puts them side by side.
- Reordering by walking the shelfSomething runs out before anyone notices it is low.
- Tools and equipment nobody can findIt was here last week. Nobody knows who has it.
Scheduling and field work
Customers
- Recommended work the customer put off, and nobody came back toThe customer's answer is worth writing down.
- The same customer question answered by hand, every dayWhere is my order? Did you get my payment?
- Customer conversations scattered across phones and inboxesNobody can see the whole conversation.
- Documents customers ask for againA copy of something already sent.
- How a customer found you, never written downNobody asked, or nobody wrote it down.
Documents and deadlines
Staff
Where to start looking
Why it costs more than it appears
- Why the delay itself costs moneyThe gap between when something happens and when it is recorded.
- Why your most capable person is doing itThe routine work drifts to whoever can be trusted with the exception.
- Why silent failure runs for yearsLoud failure gets fixed the same day. Quiet failure does not.
- Why the task itself produces no revenueSome work brings money in. Some work only moves information from one place to another.
- Why the work does not take a day offRecurring work does not pause when the person who does it is away. It piles up instead.
- Why nobody trusts the number anymoreA report wrong once is rarely trusted again.
- Why the same thing gets entered twice, and driftsTwo copies of the same information, kept by hand, cannot stay identical for long.
If one of these sounds familiar
Bring me the version you actually have. I'll learn how the process really works before I suggest anything, and if it isn't worth changing, or isn't a fit for me, I'll say so. Talk through a problem