CASE STUDY
ARTERIA
You know those days where you look at your To Do list and realise it is full of admin jobs?
Invoices to send, payments to reconcile, bills to prepare… It has to be done, but it takes time! So much that it doesn’t leave any hours to do your actual work. The work that generates sales and services your clients.
Guess what?
Those admin tasks don’t have to take your time.
In fact, you can free up that whole day to focus on what you do best. That is what Natasha from Arteria decided to do when she engaged Admin Army.
Arteria are a full-service design and marketing studio working with clients committed to business excellence and growing partnerships built on collaboration and integrity.
Arteria is a sole trader business who works closely with a portfolio of trusted contractors to provide everything from marketing strategy and creative branding to graphic design and content writing.
Put bluntly, Arteria does not have time for bookkeeping! So, they stopped doing it!
Instead, we do it for them…
GETTING ON TOP OF FINANCES
As a sole trader, Natasha found it challenging to keep on top of the bookkeeping. Cashflow was inconsistent, and there just wasn’t enough time to regularly manage the finances. This led to delays in sending out client invoices, along with other issues which can snowball if left unattended too long.
Although Natasha had been using systems such as Xero and WorkflowMax and knew her way around them enough to get by, she did not have the expertise to get the most out of these programs. Add to this the need to hire an accountant to fix coding issues and make end of year adjustments, and the benefits of outsourcing became very clear, very quickly.
“I engaged Admin Army to support my business in September 2018 with an objective to improve cash flow and create time for me to focus my skill set on other areas of the business. I have been in business as a sole trader since 2006 and recognised that to achieve business growth, outsourcing this support was critical.”
EXPANDING SERVICES
Arteria had gone through a period of rapid growth. Natasha had realised that there was a gap in the services she was offering to her clients. She saw a great opportunity to expand her business and tapped into a number of different skillsets by engaging not one, but four different contractors!
Of course, once there was a team to manage on top of her workload, there was even less time to focus on admin and finances. Natasha knew she needed help in this area and engaged Admin Army. By building a team and outsourcing to Admin Army, she was able to cost-effectively expand her service offering and be more valuable to her clients.
WHY ARTERIA CHOSE ADMIN ARMY
Choosing to outsource is one thing, but selecting the business you trust enough to work with is a whole different matter!
When searching for a partner to outsource essential work to, Admin Army stood out in that they were a single contact point for both bookkeeping and digital admin work.
“It was important that they had an in-depth understanding of the business, and understood how critical it was to be able to use the platforms I had already as a way of providing a central communication platform. It had to be a simple “plug and play” into my business using the tools I was already using.”
Weekly Xero bank reconciliation
Job costing in WorkflowMax
Digital admin – social media
(uploading and scheduling client posts)
Digital admin – WordPress Websites
(Loading client content)
HOW HAS IT ALL WORKED OUT?
PROVIDING SPACE FOR GROWTH
Although Natasha saw the need for help with bookkeeping early on, it was two years before she acted upon this need and outsourced work to Admin Army. During those two years, she found that her business started to plateau.
“Without accurate reporting, I didn’t know where I could improve, what clients to target, or what areas of the business were most lucrative. We couldn’t grow because I didn’t know what position the business was in. Things kept ticking along, but I wasn’t in a position to respond to or target growth.”
Creating more time by removing the pressure of bookkeeping enabled Arteria to upscale. Although there was more work coming in, contractors to manage and more clients to service, Natasha’s hours of work remained the same. Even better than that, the revenue increased markedly.
This is a definite case of highlighting the value gained when business owners are able to focus their attention where it is needed. (Hint: that’s not fluffing around for hours with your bookkeeping tasks!)
ARE YOU READY TO FOCUS ON WHAT YOU DO BEST?
You have just seen how focusing on what she does best has helped Natasha significantly grow her business in just one year. Are you ready to do the same?
Take Natasha’s advice when it comes to bookkeeping…
“It is a critical and fundamental part of a small business that this area of the business is done cost-effectively, super efficiently, and with someone adaptable to operate the way you work, rather than force the way they work. If it’s an area of your business you can outsource, give it to someone who has more skills in those areas than you do, so it becomes a strength of your business rather than a weakness.”
If you are ready to create time in your business and focus on what you do best, then get in touch with us here at Admin Army. We will take those bookkeeping and administration tasks off your hands so that you can focus on growing your business. Drop us a line today!