Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming essential for many small businesses, with AI agents and tools becoming part of a‘digital workforce’ that’s transforming the way we do business.

One key area where AI can lend a hand is with your procurement and cost management tasks, helping you to streamline and automate many of the steps in these processes.

Let’s look at five ways AI can help you step up your procurement game

1.  Automate the process of finding suppliers

Reviewing and updating your list of suppliers is key to a good procurement process. But doing this research manually takes time and can often be missed off your to-do list.

AI platforms like ScoutBee can scan databases and online marketplaces around the clock, filtering potential suppliers based on criteria like price, quality standards, delivery timelines and ethical-sourcing credentials.

Getting rid of the manual research saves you time and broadens the pool of potential vendors, helping you find better prices, local sourcing or better-quality services.

2.  Intelligent support for your supplier negotiations

Data gives you power in any negotiation setting. But do you currently have the data and information you need at your fingertips when talking to your suppliers?

AI tools like Nibble can analyze historical pricing data, market trends and supplier performance metrics to give you data-driven insights for your negotiation strategy. AI can suggest the best price points, look for potential concessions and even automate parts of the negotiation process.

3.  Getting predictive with your inventory management

AI-driven solutions, like EasyStock, can analyze your company’s sales patterns, seasonality, lead times and external factors to forecast demand incredibly accurately.

With AI automatically analyzing these factors, you can optimize your inventory levels and minimize the risk of stockouts and the costs associated with overstocking. This is great for keeping your cashflow under control and reducing unnecessary waste and costs.

4.  Automate your invoice processing and reconciliation

Document-processing tools, like Staple AI, can automatically extract data from invoices, match them with purchase orders and goods received notes, and flag any discrepancies for review.

Automating this reconciliation process helps you cut down on manual data entry, reduce errors and speed up the payment cycle. It also improves the overall accuracy of your record-keeping and financial management, leading to better cost control and improved reporting.

5.  Analyse and control your expenses

AI-bookkeeping tools, like Zeni, can analyze your expenditure, categories spending and generate financial reports that highlight any potential cost savings or inefficiencies.

Reviewing unusual spending patterns or deviations from your budget helps you spot spending issues and make informed decisions about expense management. This can be the driver for cutting costs, negotiating improved rates, or finding suppliers who can offer trade credit etc.

The following content was originally published by BOMA. We have updated some of this article for our readers.

The foundational goal of any business is to make a profit.

As a business owner, that’s one of your key financial aims – to make enough sales, at a big enough margin, to generate profit from your enterprise. But how does profit differ from cashflow? And why is cash king?

How do profit and cashflow differ?

To really understand the difference between generating profit and managing cashflow, we need to look at what both these terms mean. You might think that delving into the accounts is a job for your adviser, but being in control of your profit and cashflow is an invaluable business skill.

Let’s take a look at the differences:

• • What is profit? – Profit is the surplus that’s left from your income once you’ve paid your expenses, supplier bills and tax etc. It’s driven by creating a profit margin and generating value from your products and/or services.
  • What is cashflow? – Cashflow is the ongoing process of ensuring that the business has the available cash (or ‘liquid’ cash) needed to operate. This provides the money needed to trade, to pay suppliers, to cover wages or to buy raw materials etc.

Why is positive cashflow so important?

‘Cash is king!’ may be a cliche these days, but it’s a maxim which underpins any successful business model. Yes, it’s great to make a profit at year-end, but if you don’t look after your cashflow then the business may not survive as long as the end of the year.

What’s needed is good cashflow management to enhance your financial health. And without a careful eye on your cash numbers, things can quickly go awry.

A business can generate high revenues and big profits but still be cashflow poor. In other words, it can have profits at the end of the period but have very little liquid cash to fund it’s day-to-day operations over the course of the period.

Improving your cashflow management

Good cashflow management is all about being in control of your cash inflows (income you’re generating) and your cash outflows (what you’re spending).

To achieve ‘positive cashflow’ you need to proactively work to keep your inflows higher than your outflows.

As your adviser, we’ll help you set up detailed cashflow reporting and forecasting, so you can keep the business in that ideal positive cashflow position. And we’ll also look at key steps for keeping your revenues high, margins profitable and meeting your financial targets.

The following content was originally published by BOMA. We have updated some of this article for our readers.

We’re trading in uncertain times, where changes to the global economy can happen overnight.

This creates a real challenge for your small business, making it difficult to plan and understand the short to medium-term future of your financial strategy.

But by monitoring and analyzing your business data, it is possible to get back in control of your financial management, and to reduce some of the financial uncertainty.

Good business decisions are based on solid and reliable information. That’s why it’s so important to track and monitor your business performance.

Using the metrics and data from your business dashboard, you can follow your progress against budgets and financial strategies – and see when fast, evasive action is needed.

Here are five ways performance monitoring can ease your uncertainty

1. Real-time sales and revenue dashboards:

Set up Sales Dashboards to monitor sales figures, revenue streams and customer acquisition costs.

This makes it easier to spot dips or surges in demand, giving you time to adjust your marketing strategies, inventory levels or pricing. When the market changes, you’ve got the data in front of you to help you respond and remain agile.

2.  Track KPIs for operational efficiency:

Key performance indicator (KPI) dashboards help you monitor crucial operational metrics like production costs, delivery times and resource utilization.

By monitoring and analyzing these KPIs, you can look for the inefficiencies that are most affected by economic instability. When metrics show poor performance, you can take swift action to deal with rising operational costs, or poor utilization of your resources and workforce.

3.  Monitor customer behavior and trends:

Tracking your customer data helps you spot patterns in customers’ purchasing patterns, website engagement and social media interactions.

When you have data that demonstrates clear customer preferences and trends, you have the evidence needed to change strategy. The business can adapt its offerings and marketing efforts to remain relevant and competitive, even while dealing with erratic economic conditions.

4.  Review financial forecasts regularly:

Create detailed financial forecasts, including cashflow projections, revenue forecasts and profit and loss forecasts. Use your software tools to compare your actual performance data against these forecasts, so you can see the variances and where action is needed.

This helps you anticipate potential financial challenges and economic instability, with enough time to react and refine your future tactics and strategy.

5.  Analyze profitability by product and service:

Use your software’s performance metrics and tracking to understand which products, services and customer segments are most profitable – and also which are proving to be most resilient during the current economic uncertainty and upheaval.

When you know which products and segments are the most stable, you can adjust your sales and marketing strategy to focus on these specific targets. You can also pivot away from more vulnerable offerings or customer groups, helping you generate more stable revenues.

Making your financial future clearer and easier to navigate

Today’s forecasting tools and KPI dashboards give you all the data and metrics you need to stay one step ahead of the current economic uncertainty and market instability.

Come and talk to us about setting up the most useful dashboards and metrics for your business – and find out how we can guide you through these uncertain times.

The following content was originally published by BOMA. We have updated some of this article for our readers.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has surged in popularity among business users over the past few years, with many small businesses now making AI a central part of their systems.

But AI isn’t just about having some machine learning capabilities hidden away in the background. There are now full-fledged ‘AI agents’ on the market.

But what is an AI agent? And how can adding these digital workers to your workforce help you scale, boost efficiency and become a more effective business operation?

What is an AI agent?

An AI agent is a digital entity that can carry out tasks to achieve specific operational or business goals. Unlike basic AI, which follows predefined rules, AI agents can learn, adapt and make autonomous decisions, mimicking our own problem-solving skills.

Think of your AI agent as a digital member of the team. A worker that can be entrusted with a specific task – like answering your business phone or completing your bookkeeping.

Let’s look at five areas where an AI agent could be helping your business

1.  Procurement and cost management

AI agents can work in the background to automate selection of suppliers, negotiate contracts, and monitor inventory levels. This helps you optimize your pricing, find the best supplier contracts and reduce your overall procurement costs.

GEP’s AI agents help with supplier relationship management, automate your key procurement tasks and improve logistics, making your whole procurement process more efficient.

2.  Client service and reception

Customer service AI agents are available 24/7 to provide AI-driven support, handle routine enquiries and personalize the way you interact with your customers. They can manage appointment scheduling, greet virtual visitors and route calls to the most relevant person.

HubSpot’s Breeze Customer Agent can resolve routine FAQs, provide instant support and integrate with your CRM system to make those interactions seamless and personalized.

3. Sales and marketing

Sales and marketing AI agents are designed to automate your lead generation and personalize the company’s marketing campaigns. They can even analyze customer data to spot likely sales opportunities, boost conversion rates and drive up your revenue.

Salesforce’s Agentforce can streamline your marketing operations in several different ways. Agentforce crafts campaign briefs, breaks down target audience segments and even generates initial drafts of marketing emails.

4.  Finance and accounting

Finance-focused AI agents can automate many of your basic bookkeeping tasks, including invoice processing, expense tracking and bank reconciliation. This is great for reducing human errors and giving time back to your finance team. They can also generate cashflow reports, assist with budgeting and improve your overall financial management.

AppZen’s agent can automate manual accounts payable processes, optimize your financial decision-making and predict potential cashflow issues. It integrates with your existing financial systems to give you a completely transparent view of your financial health.

5.  HR and people management

AI agents can automate many of your basic human resources (HR) tasks. This can include onboarding new starters, training staff, processing payroll and benefits, and answering HR queries. This gives time back to your HR team to focus on higher value tasks.

Leena AI provides an AI-powered virtual assistant that’s a central point of contact for employees. It can quickly answer HR-related questions, reducing the burden on your HR team.

Talk to us about making AI agents part of your business

Want to make the most of AI, but don’t know where to start? In this series, we’ll run you through the basics of AI, the main terms and the AI tools and agents that can transform your business.

And if you’re hungry to know more, why not talk to our team about the AI agents and AI-driven apps that would be most appropriate for your industry, niche or business type.

The following content was originally published by BOMA. We have updated some of this article for our readers.

Automation. The magical word that promises to free us from repetitive tasks, save hours of time, and deliver your business from the clutches of inefficiency.

Just plug in a shiny new app, flick a few switches, and voilà – chaos becomes order.

Except… it doesn’t. Not if your underlying processes are a mess to begin with.

Let’s break down the common myth that automation fixes processes and explore why you need to sort your workflows out first – before letting the bots loose.

The Myth: “We’ll Just Automate It”

You’ve probably heard (or said) something like this:

“Our quoting process is all over the place. We just need to automate it.”

Or:

“We keep missing invoice follow-ups – let’s get a system that does it automatically.”

The idea is appealing–automation as a silver bullet. But automating a broken process doesn’t fix it – it just allows you to do the wrong thing faster and more often.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

Automation is only as good as the process it’s built on. If you’ve got:

• • Multiple ways of entering the same data.
  • Approval steps that rely on someone’s memory.
  • Bottlenecks disguised as “checks and balances”.
  • Excel sheets of doom lurking in the background.

Then automating those steps won’t solve the problem. It’ll just make the spaghetti go faster.

Take invoicing as an example. If your team is unclear on when to invoice, what to include, or which rate card applies, then automating that process will just send out incorrect invoices – but faster! Your accounts team won’t thank you.

The Fix: Clean Before You Code

Before you even think about automation, take time to map the process as it should be. Ask:

• • Who does what, and when?
  • What decisions are made along the way?
  • Where does information come from and go to?
  • What causes delays or confusion?

It doesn’t need to be a six-month strategic review. A whiteboard, a few post-it notes, and some candid conversations can go a long way. Once you’ve got a cleaned-up, agreed-upon workflow, then it’s time to look at automation tools that can support and scale that process.

Automation is Amplification

Think of automation as a megaphone. It amplifies what’s already happening in your business – good or bad.

If you’ve got a solid workflow, automation helps your team run like a well-oiled machine. But if your process is a bit… Frankenstein, then automation will just make the monster move faster.

A quick case in point: a client wanted to automate their quote approvals using a fancy CRM integration. Turns out, half their quotes weren’t even following the same template. After standardizing their quote process first, automation finally made sense – and worked beautifully.

Final Thoughts

Automation isn’t magic. It’s just a tool. And like any tool, it works best when the foundation is solid. So before you go chasing new tech, do a bit of spring cleaning. Your future automated self will thank you.

The following content was originally published by BOMA. We have updated some of this article for our readers.