One day our boss gives us the task of saving office costs . He says that too much is spent on paper, printers, breakfasts, electricity, etc. and that the current situation cannot continue. We have to save, tighten our belts and find ways to rationalize consumption.
Let's get down to work and the first thing we do is a list of the main expenditure items. The following list can serve as a starting point for some of them:
Printing, both in black and white and in color.
Stationery (paper, folders, pens, markers, filing cabinets, etc.).
Messaging and mail delivery.
Software and applications, including web services.
Fax, calls and printing documents.
Electricity: Light, air conditioning, computers
Miscellaneous supplies: food,…
Rental of premises
Next, once we have determined the expense items to be processed, we attach the corresponding associated amount to each one. Ideally, we should have the data for the current year and for 2 or 3 previous periods, in order to be able to intuit their evolution . Be careful not to group items in a single field called "other" or "various", since this can lead to this being the one with the greatest weight and not leaving us much room for manoeuvre in the analysis.
Where do we get the data from? Normally, the Administration department usually has almost all of it, although in some cases you will have to rack your brains a bit to find it. The accounting application, purchase orders, invoices, are the sources that we should consult. It is not a bad idea to question some at random, just in case they are not entirely correct.
Once we have our table complete, with items and finance and banking email list amounts, we must select which ones we will pay more attention to. We need to apply an objective criterion . A good tool for this is to apply the Pareto Rule , according to which, 80% of the total cost is generated by 20% of the items. It is not always strictly followed, but it usually works. We order our table by amount, in descending order from highest to lowest, and we look at the top, at those that account for 80% of the total amount. That is where we start to attack.
Some ideas to reduce costs in each game
For each company, the result will be different. In any case, below we will see some tips for attacking the discussed items as an example.
Printing, both in black and white and in colour
Printing costs are associated with the consumption of paper and toner or ink cartridges. They are directly proportional to the use made of the printers installed for printing; normally, scanning with a multifunction printer does not cost anything. The strategies we have to reduce the overall cost of printing.