Using less paper is a great thing to help conserve resources and the planet. Many small businesses can benefit from being as paperless as possible. When considering a converting to a ‘more-paperless-office’ you have to plan to convert your existing paper documents. To convert your existing documents you will need to get familiar with scanners and document scanning. Below is a glossary of ‘scanning terms’.
Scanning Terms: Understand the Scan
Category: Small Business Technology /
Tags: digitization, document management, scanning terminology, scanning terms
IT Support Services
If your business has offices in London or if your a London-based business and you need IT Support London-based, you need to check out Sysfix. I have a colleague that needed IT Support Croydon-based and he was very pleased with the company’s professionalism, expertise and most of all the price.
Sysfix is a IT support services company that specializes in small business support. They offer a wide variety of services. Services include email hosting, server visualization, server support and maintenance, server room auditing, data recovery, office installation and setup and many more IT related services. They can provide your small business with an affordable IT support contract to insure your computers, servers and network is operating at a high level.
Your small business probably relies heavily on your computer systems, as most companies do, you want a company to provide you with dependable service and the expertise to handle your systems…. If your located in London, I hear Sysfix is the place to contact.
Complex Business Transaction Services
Complex business transactions require large amounts of documents and data need to be shared with other parties. The transfer of small business ownership when selling a company, initial public offerings, mergers, acquisitions, commercial and corporate real estate transactions, bankruptcies or any kind of due diligence are some situations that require large amounts of data to be accessed and examined by multiple parties. These complex transactions involve full disclosure and high-accessibility to information.
Merrill Datasite is a virtual data room services provider that offers a secure and efficient method of sharing business information for electronic due diligence. Merrill Datasite provides professional VDR solution for IPO process. They offer legal document review, localization services, globalization, and internationalization. In addition to these, the company can also provide a myriad of translation services. Merrill Datasite offers document translation, they are a technical translation services provider, and they do business and website translation.
If your an international company or a domestic company involved in a transaction that spans different countries, you will find that each country has it’s own laws that govern how business transactions must be conducted. It is very time consuming and labor intensive to learn the applicable laws are and to figure out how those laws apply to a particular business transaction. You would be well served by getting legal translation services to help you sort through all the legal requirements you must meet to be within the law. Merrill offers legal,financial, and life sciences translation services.
Another obstacle in completing international business transactions is the language barrier. You don’t want to trust your understanding of the German language (or any other language) when you are required to understand and respond to complex business and legal proceedings. Instead, it is wise to get some language translation services. Merrill Brink translation services assures that the details of your transaction are not lost in translation.
Be prepared and make your business financial transaction a success.
Category: Small Business Services /
Tags: business transactions, data sharing, due diligence, translation services
Don’t forget the Restrooms and Kitchen areas
When beginning a business there are a lot of things to do. You’ve filed the proper documentation with your state, you’ve gotten the proper insurances and you’ve secured an office or workspace. With all these things out of the way there are still so many things to do. There is office or workspace furniture and equipment, lunch or kitchen areas and restrooms. These areas are often an after thought when planning a new work-space. Office furniture and equipment is, largely dictated by the amount of space, your business functions and safety. Kitchen and restrooms are often last on the list but have a big impact on your employees and an even bigger impact if you have public restroom. If your business serves serves food or beverages, your kitchen and restrooms are even more important.
Here are some things to think about when planning and budgeting for your kitchen and restroom areas.
- hand dryers – hand dryers are more sanitary than paper towels and they save your money on buying papers towels. Having hand dryers also makes clean up easier. Air hand dryers are good in kitchens and bathrooms
- soap dispensers – soap dispensers are much more sanitary that bars of soap! You need these in both the kitchen and bathrooms.
- toilet paper dispensers – Again, being sanitary is the key. I know I have been in bathrooms that have the roll of toilet paper sitting on the back of the toilet. I am already not fond of using public bathrooms and the thought of using that ‘naked’ roll of toilet paper … makes me cringe!
- seat covers – My personal favorite. If you provide seat covers you will save money on toilet paper because most people are going to put some on the seat to cover it. You ma also prevent a clogged toilet because people use a lot of extra toilet paper to line the toilet seat and when they are done they attempt to flush it all.
- automated air freshener – A smelly area is just unpleasant. Get air fresheners that work, periodically throughout the day. These are mainly used in bathrooms but are great in kitchen areas as well.
- hands free trash cans – Have plenty of trash receptacles. Make them easily accessible. Trash can without lids or with foot controlled lids are best.More trash cans equals less of the wrong stuff being flushed. You need these in bathroom and kitchen areas.
Cell Phones in the Workplace
Cell phones and mobile devices have so many useful features that users love. The ability to take pictures, take video, send emails, send instant message, surf the web, play games and more. For an individual, that is a wonderful thing but for business owners managing employees, it can be a productivity killer and depending on the business, a security risk!
If your business has very sensitive information that cannot afford to be leaked, you may want to prohibit cell phones in your work place. With the addition of cameras to cell phones, it is very easy to capture images. I have been to businesses when I was an audio/visual tech, that required that all visitors leave their cell phones at the front desk, prior to entering. For employees they had cell phone lockers. I thought that was a great idea. That way employees are comfortable that their belongings are safe and you, as the business owner can be comfortable knowing your secrets won’t be leaked.
You could just tell your employees to leave their cell phones in their cars, but not everyone drives and a small gesture like providing lockers can improve the moral and disposition of your employees. In addition, the cell phone lockers can be used to as wallet lockers or a place for woman to secure their purses. Any relatively small items can be stored in theses lockers.
Protect your sensitive information and remove an employee distraction by prohibiting cell phones in certain areas of your business. Give your employees a certain level of comfort by providing them an area to store their cell phones and other valuables.
Category: Small Business Insight, Small Business Services /
Tags: cell phone lockers, employees, sensitive information
Get your Office in Sync with Appointment Software
It is important to for your office to run efficiently and effectively. For your business to be successful you need all the parts to be in sync and aware of what is going on with all the other parts of the business. How effectively you manage your office and perform the administrative tasks of your business, can be the difference between success and failure. Scheduling, coordination and collaboration among your administrative staff is vital.
Great tool for getting everyone on one accord is multi-user appointment software. Appointment software gives your office a central calendar that can be viewed from everyone’s computer. You can also do scheduling, project management, messaging, call tracking, contact database, and manage client information. All theses functions can be easily accessed by everyone in accordance to their access level.
Coordinate meets that are workable for all departments. Plan and hash-out projects in a software environment that allows for everyone to provide input and evaluate the projects progress. Share client information to provide better customer service. Most appointment software has a very user-friendly interface, making it easy to user for all levels of computer users.
Get your office and your administrative staff in sync and improve your business.
Category: Small Business Technology /
Tags: appointment software, collaboration, office management, office tools
Small Businesses: Digitize and Save
Small businesses need to save money in as many areas as possible. There are cost associated with just about everything when running a business. There are mortgages or leases, equipment costs, insurances, office supplies and possibly employees. Of these areas, there are very few that you can make a substantial save in, for most businesses. Of all those things, offices supplies and employees are the areas that you can make savings.If you have employees you probably need them so to save you have to figure out ways to increase employee productivity. With office supplies, you can consume less to get some savings.
You can save money on supplies and increase the value of your labor cost buy digitizing your office. Digitizing your office can make your office operate more efficiently and cause less consumption. Office digitization is the process of creating digital copies of all the physical papers in your office. Digitizing documents starts with scanning paper documents to create a digital copy. Other processing may be necessary depending on what the digital documents will be needed for. It is the process of becoming paperless. Digitizing your documents makes document management so much easier. You here it all the time but we are going to provide you with some practical steps to achieving some level of paperless-ness. Every office will not be able to achieve full paperless-ness due to certain regulations or laws that govern their business. Consider the following steps when planning to make your office paperless.
Category: Small Business Insight, Small Business Technology /
Tags: digitization, digitization plan, document management, equipment, paperless, scanning
