Continuing in our series on simplifying your business life, here are two more ways for entrepreneurs to be more productive:

Use Paperless Receipts: One of the most daunting tasks for any entrepreneur is the organization of receipts and ensuring they are entered into your accounting spreadsheet. This is especially true if you have numerous paper receipts floating around your desk. These days, many merchants allow the option to have your receipt emailed to you. If this option is available, take advantage of it. Create a folder in your email box for business receipts. This way, when it comes time to do your bookkeeping, most of your receipts will be located in one place.

For the remaining paper receipts, you can take pictures of them from your smartphone and upload them into a designated folder giving you another place to consolidate your records. These two simple habits will put the vast majority of your receipts into places where they can be easily accessed making things far easier for your bookkeeper.

Of course, there will some expenses such as your mileage records that will need to be kept on paper and entered into a spreadsheet later. However, there should only be a handful of such expenses and they will be relatively easy to keep track of with your other receipts being kept on your computer. One last thing; if you are not comfortable with taking photos on your smartphone and uploading them, there are other solutions available such as scanning receipts into your computer. Whatever works best for your business, find a way to put all your business expense receipts into one or two places on your computer.

Outsource Your Company Payroll: Payroll is one area of your business that you should consider outsourcing to an expert. There are a number of compliance issues that go into processing payroll, such as federal, state, local and FICA taxes, workman’s comp, etc. Doing this on your own can eat up a large chunk of your time and risk not having accurate figures in the event of an audit. Partner with an accounting professional that has specific expertise in payroll processing. This is one worthwhile investment that will help your business run more smoothly and efficiently.