After consulting with more than 2,000 Australian businesses about using technology to increase their profitability, WorkGuru's founders developed a strong understanding of where things go wrong and where the easy wins are. When developing the WorkGuru platform, they clearly knew what businesses needed from a business management tool to extract the most value.
In the constant pursuit of more efficiency, businesses of all sizes often accumulate a range of systems, technologies, and processes. While essential at the time of their development or purchase, many of these systems quickly become cumbersome and source huge inefficiency.
Overusing and relying on Microsoft Excel to track inventory, time, projects, and money is often one of the worst mistakes a business can make. Inevitably, your spreadsheets will get larger, more complex, and less user-friendly as your business grows. Worse, your spreadsheets will let you manipulate numbers that you don’t like, preventing a true picture of your business's performance.
HERE'S HOW COSSILL & WEBLEY BANISHED EXCEL FROM THEIR BUSINESS
Eventually, importing and exporting data and integrating your spreadsheets with other spreadsheets takes up more and more time. One of the easiest ways for a business to improve profitability is by focusing on using data, not compiling data.
Consolidating your business’s non-accounting data into a single, user-friendly platform that everyone in your business can use is the easiest way to eliminate the inefficiencies of Excel (and almost all other technology your business might be using!). This consolidation can significantly improve profitability by streamlining operations and reducing errors.
As a simple, whole-of-business solution, WorkGuru will not only remove the cost and inefficiencies of your legacy systems but also help you identify a whole new range of ideas to improve your operations and enhance profitability.
Many manufacturing businesses lack accurate insight into individual project costs and revenues. Often, the more complex the problem, the greater the confusion.
Whether on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis, many businesses rely on the fact that the ‘whole’ business is profitable without a clear understanding of what individual projects are making (or losing!).
WorkGuru provides users with a very granular understanding of every cost involved in a project. This high level of transparency into the actual cost of inventory, labour, and other inputs is critical to ensuring that each job going out the door makes you money. Real-time transparency can significantly improve profitability by allowing you to make informed decisions quickly.
WorkGuru’s live WIP (Work In Progress) reporting tells you at any stage exactly how much work you’ve done but haven’t billed clients yet. Timesheets and stock usage are fed in real-time into our reporting, meaning there’s no need to wait until the end of the month to know where you stand. This immediate insight helps you manage projects better and ultimately improve profitability.
Inventory management is one of the great challenges for manufacturing businesses. Having just the right amount of inventory is critical to delivering projects on time and on budget. Excess inventory can cost money in additional storage and tracking expenses, while too little can delay projects, resulting in late deliveries.
HOW MUCH IS BAD INVENTORY CONTROL COSTING YOUR BUSINESS?
There is no big secret to managing your inventory effectively and efficiently. It takes a good understanding of your business’s needs and requirements and mapping that to detailed forecasting.
WorkGuru’s project templates are designed to allow users to accurately account for inventory with a detailed bill of materials. These individual project inventory requirements can then be matched against your overall stock to create an accurate picture, ensuring you have what you need. This effective management can greatly improve profitability by reducing unnecessary costs and ensuring timely project completion.
Limiting staff downtime, or the “lost hours,” is a key way to increase profitability in any business, particularly manufacturing.
Of course, every business wants every employee to undertake productive work for every moment they are paid. While this may be impractical and unrealistic, minimizing downtime is one of the best ways to improve profitability.
A good culture underpinned by strong communication and individual accountability is the first step to reducing downtime. Understanding where your employees are spending their time is just as critical.
WorkGuru overcomes the challenge of managing downtime using a web kiosk that allows all your staff to enter their timesheets and material usage straight onto whatever project they are working on. This eliminates the need for double-entry of timesheets for payroll and separate timesheets for project management, providing real-time reporting on staff productivity. By reducing downtime, WorkGuru helps improve profitability by ensuring your workforce is as productive as possible.
Once you have finished an individual project, you will have full transparency of who worked on the project and when. This data is critical to identifying where and when you have downtime and developing strategies to improve productivity and profits.
These are just four of the many ways WorkGuru can help you improve profitability. By consolidating technology, providing real-time transparency, managing inventory effectively, and limiting staff downtime, WorkGuru offers comprehensive solutions that streamline your operations and enhance your bottom line.
Talk to our sales team today or request a demonstration to learn how we can help your business get back on track and improve profitability.
