At this point in the year, most people are on a health kick after indulging over Christmas – but it’s not just our personal wellbeing we should be taking care of. It’s the perfect time for recruitment agencies to perform a health check on your business, to see where you could be doing things better. How fit is your business back office? Put your agency to the test
But while a lot of attention is paid to client relations and business development initiatives, not enough agencies spend time looking at your company operations. This may not be the most dynamic topic, but it’s the back office where most recruiters are losing profit potential.
If you’re concerned that your recruitment agency back office could be in better shape, here are some key symptoms to look out for, shared by our partners ETZ Payments, – and how to address them…
Symptom #1 – mundane admin is taking over
One quick health check that all agencies can carry out is to ask yourself how your company’s weekly workload is weighted. Is it mostly spent on clients and contractors, plus high value business-building activities? Or is the bulk of the week dedicated to administration?
Run a timesheet analysis for the past three months to get an accurate depiction of how your staff are spending their time. You might be surprised…
Symptom #2 – there’s paperwork everywhere
Recruitment involves a lot of admin, so there’s no escaping it altogether. However, everyday processes such as contractor timesheets, expense claim management and invoicing can still be streamlined.
Look at how much paperwork your agency is currently dealing with, and how efficiently it is being managed. Many companies will find you are operating a ‘mish mash’ of manual systems and processes, which are cumbersome to update, and there is definitely room for improvement.
Symptom #3 – you’re constantly correcting mistakes
Even with the best internal systems in the world, recruitment agencies can waste a lot of valuable time correcting and collating documentation submitted by your contractors. Timesheets and expense claims need to be in the right format to be processed, approved, integrated and invoiced. And that’s if they are sent through on time!
Ask your team how much work they do each week getting contractor data formatted properly. Chances are they’d bite your hand off for a better way of doing things.
Symptom #4 – cash flow doesn’t come easy
It’s easy to demote back office to the bottom of your priority list, but a strong operational set-up is the backbone of good cashflow.
How often have invoices gone over to clients later than they should have, because you were chasing outstanding timesheets? Or invoices been sent back because information was inputted incorrectly? A rock-solid back office structure can solve problems like these and ensure you get paid on time.
Let technology take the back office burden
The easiest way to improve your back office fitness is to put an infrastructure in place for automating administration. There are affordable recruitment software tools now available that take care of core admin processes – including timesheets, expense forms and invoicing – on your behalf.
These platforms work by setting permutations for key business paperwork; for example, contractors can only submit expenses if they follow a certain template. It will automatically detect and resolve any errors, to make sure your documentation is completely standardised.
Additionally, the right back office technology will be able to identify when data is missing, and send a notification to those concerned. For instance, if your contractors are required to submit their timesheets by the last working day of the month, it will send a reminder to those who fail to meet the deadline.
With these simple but effective processes in place, your team will no longer have to spend hours and hours on mundane administration tasks. Instead, you’ll be able to focus on building client relationships and attracting new talent – along with those other ‘rainy day’ tasks you never quite get around to – knowing your key business processes are in safe hands.
Nick Woodward is CEO at ETZ, specialists in back office technology for recruitment agencies.
