A Guide to Digitising Your Business

If you’re like many Australian small to medium-sized operators, digitising your business as much as you can has been crucial to surviving the tough COVID-19 restrictions. These restrictions have forced many businesses to digitise much faster than they otherwise would have. 

Businesses that have gone digital are coping with these challenging times much better than those that haven’t. 

Ways to digitise your business

Here are our top tips for digitising your business.

Tip 1: Rethink your business model

The COVID-19 restrictions have forced many businesses to ‘think outside the box’ to keep operating. In many cases, it has meant rethinking the business model to implement more digital technology. 

Using this technology can allow your staff to collaborate with each other remotely and to service your customers. It can help your business survive now, but it can also help you thrive in the future by increasing your digital revenue stream.

One of the best ways to rethink your business model is to monitor what your successful competitors are doing. If they are using technology to get a competitive advantage, you should be too.   

Tip 2: Take advantage of any government programs on offer

The federal government has allocated plenty of money to help businesses make the digital transition via the Australian Small Business Advisory Service. If you’re a sole trader or an SME with less than 20 staff, you can access a range of digital support services for less than $60, including how to:

• implement a variety of digital tools to help your business
• build a website
• sell your products or services online
• set up social media and other online marketing campaigns
• use a range of small business software programs
• protect your business and customer information from online hackers.

Tip 3: Do a digital skills audit and train your staff

There’s no point implementing any digital technology if your staff aren’t capable of using it effectively. Doing a digital skills audit of your team will help you identify training needs so you can get your people using technology as efficiently as possible. 

Your staff need to be digitally literate to take advantage of any benefits that technology can provide. Investing in digital training for staff has never been more critical than it is now.

Tip 4: Invest in cybersecurity

The more you digitise your business, the more important it is to have appropriate cybersecurity measures in place. These measures prevent anonymous hackers from targeting your business online, and they can include:

• installing cybersecurity software
• setting up appropriate security access to your online business systems
• encrypting your business and customer data
• putting cybersecurity policies in place to guide your staff. 

Tip 5: Manage your finances online

It’s much easier to manage your business finances online than ever before. Digital accounting and bookkeeping software can help you to easily do key business finance tasks anywhere, anytime, including:

• invoicing your customers and automatically chasing up payments
• providing quotes
• paying your staff
• paying expenses 
• sending purchase orders
• preparing financial reports
• lodging BAS statements 
• monitoring stock levels.

Managing your finances online can save you time, reduces errors and improves efficiency. And our invoice financing solution integrates with your accounting software so you can easily access funds in your outstanding invoices and better manage cash flow. 

How finance can help you digitise

Having to digitise your business may not come cheaply. Especially if you're having to train your staff, upgrade your technology and equipment or invest in artificial intelligence. Equipment finance provides businesses with the funding needed to invest in equipment that's going to help achieve their goals more efficiently. 

By using equipment finance, you can preserve your working capital to put to use elsewhere, while making consistent and affordable repayments.

With businesses rapidly digitising as a way to stay relevant through a quickly-changing business world, to remain competitive, it’s essential to keep up. While it may not be possible to digitise every aspect of your business, focussing on innovation and technology now will help lay the foundations for successful operations into the future.

If you would like to learn more about business line of credit, invoice financing or equipment financing , please visit us at earlypay.com.au or speak to your BDM or Broker today.