A spring clean is a long-established tradition, a means of blowing away the cobwebs of winter and welcoming the warmer weather of spring. For a business, a spring clean signals an opportune time de-clutter both in a physical and a metaphorical sense.
1 Financial records (and other important documents)
Once your accountant has collected all the financial information into an annual financial report, you have no need to store these receipts, invoices etc. in your main working environment.
However, you do need to keep hold of some of this information for a minimum of six years just in case the tax man comes calling.
This information will need to be stored in a place that is safe, with minimal risk of fire and water damage, as well as theft and acts of terrorism. And you also need to be able to access it as and when necessary.
For a small business, cheap self-storage units offer the versatility you are looking for. For larger businesses, investing in archiving services with a storage company is worth the investment, more so you have larger quantities of documents that would benefit from a delivery and retrieval service.
2 Storing furniture
The advent of cloud computing has meant that a lot the data and information a business produces on a daily basis is backed up to the cloud. This means that the modern work-place is starting to look every different to how it was some years ago.
This may mean that as you spring clean your business there seems to be an excess of office furniture, such as filing cabinets, book cases and the like. These are all assets for your business and as such, you may want to hold on to them for a time. If you do place things in storage, an inventory is a good idea.
If you grow your business, you may need these items once again and this is why many businesses place it in storage. Or, you may prefer to realise its value while it has some and sell it.
3 Examine staff structures
As your business grows, it changes. And the roles that some staff started out doing will have changed – or they need to change.
A spring clean is a chance to examine staffing levels and structures, as well as the roles people are playing and what your business needs. Solutions include realigning job descriptions and staff taking on new challenges. It may also mean employing new people in newly created vacancies.
4 Review and update your business plan
You may vaguely remember writing it many years ago, but the pace of growth has meant you have not had chance to review your business plan in some time.
A spring clean is the perfect time to look at your original aims and objectives, review how and what you did to meet them, and what your new objectives for the coming five years are.
5 Clean your office - literally
Because no one has vacuumed behind the printer in years…
