Thinking of tweaking your existing policies and procedures to eek out even more efficiency? Here’s a great way to do it.
It’s a smart move to revisit your policies and procedures to make sure little inefficiencies haven’t crept in over time. But you don’t want to devote a major chunk of time to doing it. There’s a way to accomplish both.
All you need is a pack of Post-It notes.
Simply write every step of each Finance process on an individual note. Then lay out the notes in the order your existing process goes — on a table, on a wall, etc.
So say you’re looking at your expense reporting process. It might look like this:
- Post It 1: Employee picks up expense report form.
- Post It 2: Employee sends report to supervisor for approval.
- Post It 3: Supervisor returns approved report to employee.
- Post It 4: Employee submits to A/P.
- Post It 5: A/P approves report and cuts reimbursement check.
- Post It 6: A/P distributes reimbursement checks to employees.
When viewed this way, opportunities to streamline leap out. Why can’t step 3 be eliminated altogether and let supervisors turn in approved reports to A/P? Or maybe employees can be the ones to come to A/P to pick up their checks.
No matter what your solutions, using sticky notes allows you to move steps in the process so you can consider your alternatives and how feasible they are.
Be sure to bring some extra blank Post its in case folks come up with other ideas to improve the flow.
