Ideas for freeing time in your newsagency business

Time is money as they say. Saving time in the running of a newsagency usually saves money. Here are my suggestions on things you could stop doing or change how you do them in order to save time and money in your business.

1. Stop labeling magazines. Only label low volume monthlies. All other labels are unnecessary, time consuming and damaging to the covers.
2. Stop pricing stationery and other items displayed on traditional shelves. Use shelf labels. Save time and more easily adjust prices.
3. Preference suppliers who provide electronic invoices. Manually entering an invoice takes time, generates mistakes and binds you to work bigger competitors do not undertake. Let your suppliers know you will preference electronic invoices. There are ways they can produce these in a cost effective manner for their businesses. Give them time to make the move. Explain it will help you better support their products.
4. Feed your sales data to your computer system. Stop double entry, stock mistakes and reduce your accounting costs.
5. Stop seeing reps who do not make an appointment.
6. Connect your EFTPOS terminal to your POS software. Streamline the counter.
7. Do your end of shift balancing using your software. Reduce mistakes. Stop doing manual paperwork.
8. Stop writing up a sales ledger for each day. Yes, some newsagents still do this.
9. Order using your computer system. Stop generating orders by walking the shop or going off gut feel. Your computer system will save you time and help you buy better.
10. Do your roster using software. Build the roster to a target labour cost that reflects a lower cost of business.
11. Use the federal government super portal. Less paperwork. Less payment processing time.
12. Stop buying stationery at the warehouse. The time it takes is usually more expensive than you can justify based on what you make.
13. When magazines are taken off the shelves, scan returns at the counter, remove covers and package ready for return. i.e. one step process.
14. Do not store stock off site. You can lose it. It can get damaged. You spend time moving it around.