As a growing or established company, making margin improvements to your bottom line can be difficult. However, the chances are good that billable hours are a huge part of your company’s budget, and with poor management, lost profit on billable hours can quickly eat into your profits.
What Is Margin Erosion?
If you are unfamiliar with Margin Erosion, let’s define it. Margin erosion is the gradual decline in profitability that a company experiences over time. Margin erosion can occur as a result of many different external and internal factors, including:
- Inflation
- Increased Competition
- Changes In Consumer Demand
- Rising Costs Of Goods And Services
In addition to these external factors, margin erosion can result from inefficiencies in your processes and operations. Among these bottlenecks, billable hours are often a big culprit.
What Are Billable Hours?
Billable hours are the amount of time your employees spend working on projects that generate revenue for your company. These hours get billed to clients at an hourly rate.
While billable hours are essential to the success of your business, they can also be a significant drain on your profits if poorly managed. Here are some helpful and straightforward tips to help you keep billable hours from eroding your margins:
Streamline Your Processes
The first step to improving your billable hours is to streamline your processes. Do you have any unnecessary steps that are taking up time and costing you money? If so, eliminate them.
In addition, take a look at your project management processes. Are they efficient? Do they allow your team to work as efficiently as possible? If not, make changes so that they do.
While you might not give much thought to the extra minute or two to complete a task, those minutes can add up quickly when multiplied by the number of employees on your team.
Other areas where process failures can negatively impact your bottom line include:
Miscommunication – An effective communication strategy is essential to the success of any business. If your team members are not on the same page, it can lead to confusion, wasted time, and misquotes that can cost you money. Sales representatives should collaborate with supporting team members to determine the best way to move a project forward before presenting the proposal to the client.
Billing – If your billing process is inefficient, it can lead to lost invoices and late payments. Billing oversights can strain your cash flow and make it challenging to keep up with your expenses. Integrating a billing automation tool into your business can help you streamline your billing process and improve your bottom line.
Inaccurate Cost/Time Estimations – If you are not accurately estimating the cost and time required to complete projects, you could be losing money. Make sure you have a solid understanding of your costs and that you are factoring in all the necessary steps when estimating the time required to complete a project. Proposal corrections can be costly and time-consuming, so it is essential to get it right the first time.
Automate Where Possible
Another way to keep billable hours from eroding your margins is to automate where possible. Are there any tasks that your team regularly performs that are better off automated? If so, invest in the necessary tools and technologies to do so.
In today’s business world, business owners can automate many tasks. By automating these tasks, you can free up your team’s time so that they can focus on billable projects.
For instance, setting up an automated Email Marketing campaign to nurture newsletter subscribers, prospects, and leads can save significant resources, including time and money.
Work With Trusted Partners For Fulfillment
A third way to improve your billable hours is to work with other trusted partners, companies, or contractors for help with fulfillment. Delegating tasks to others can be an effective way to finish work, duties, or projects efficiently without the trouble of internal hiring or sacrificing quality.
Working with a white label company specializing in the type of work you need help with streamlines all your processes. For example, choose a WordPress Support and Maintenance company if you need help with WordPress website development. If you need help with IT support, choose an IT support company.
In many cases, they can provide customized services that meet your needs, saving you time and money.
Manage Your Team’s Time
Once you have streamlined your processes and automated them where possible, you must focus on managing your team’s time effectively. Keep everyone in the loop about project deadlines, communicate clearly, and ensure team members work diligently to meet them.
If you have team members consistently not meeting milestones, it can negatively impact your bottom line. Conversely, if someone is consistently underperforming, you might need to rethink their position within your company.
Keep Your Team Focused
When your team focuses on billable projects, they are more likely to be productive and efficient. Make sure every team member has a clear understanding of the projects they are working on and knows the expectations and requirements, whether doing SEO or working on a custom project.
If you find that your team is constantly being pulled away from billable projects to work on non-billable tasks, it’s essential to address the issue. One way to create focus is establishing a policy where only certain team members can work on non-billable tasks. This policy will help keep your team focused on the projects that will generate revenue for your business.
Keep Your Margins And Productivity High
Following these tips, you can keep billable hours from eroding your margins and improve your bottom line. By streamlining your processes, automating where possible, and working with trusted partners, you can get the work done more quickly and efficiently without sacrificing quality or incurring additional costs.
If you could use a hand with professional IT services, we’re here to help. Our experienced team assists with a wide range of services, including website development, IT support, and more. Contact us to discuss how Interactive Palette can help keep your margins high and your productivity up.
