Halloween has come and gone and the holidays will be here before you know it. For many retailers, this is the calm before the peak shopping season storm. Even if your business won’t see much of a seasonal spike, you likely have a number of year end tasks that should be taken care of. If you implemented some of the technology solutions, like our free inventory management software, that we recommended in previous posts, that year end stuff might be a little bit trickier this year. Some of those new systems will make your life easier going forward but that mid-year switch may cause some unanticipated glitches. That’s why this is a great time to take a look at things and start identifying those areas that are going to need some extra attention. If you haven't tried our free inventory management software, now's the time to get started!
Do you send out holiday cards or other promotions to valued customers? Did all your customer data make it into your new CRM system correctly? Do you know how to run the reports to get the information that you need? If you typically offer something for customers who have to wait for an appointment during this busy time of the year, is your online scheduling system set up to provide that perk? What about your online ordering system? If orders spike and shipping times need to be adjusted you’ll need to be sure that information is being provided to customers. What about all the new customers that you’ve gained thanks to your new customer attraction strategies? What worked as a holiday promotion when you had 200 customers may not be feasible with 2000. Even keeping track of what you have is harder now. That's a good sign that it's time to try our free inventory management software and a CRM (or two!).
Changes to your back office solutions can cause issues as well. Employees typically want more time off around the holidays, just when you may need them more. If they are using the new employee scheduler to create those requests you may run into some trouble so be sure to monitor the system. Of course, accounting systems are designed to accommodate tax reports so you should have covered any potential snafus when you implemented the new system.
Hopefully, this has been a year of growth and exciting changes for your small business. With a little forethought and some careful attention, you will be able to celebrate those successes without the headaches that can be caused by major overhauls to the way that you do business. You can really look forward to the new year knowing that things will be even better once all the transitions are complete and you become familiar with how the end of year processes work with each new system. For example, our free inventory management software has reports that can be run for the entire year that will show you exactly what you did in the system. This will make it easy to reconcile your books with your physical inventory.
Have you tried our free inventory management software yet?
Keep checking back with us for most tips to help you grow your small business. We’ll be back soon with more information that you need to know! In the meantime, try our free inventory management software for your small business.
