How to stop retyping the same data in your business
If someone in your business types the same customer name into two places, you have a small problem that grows. It costs time, it causes mistakes, and it rarely gets fixed because everyone is busy. Here is how to see it, and how to start.
Written by Villiers Vision Works, Cape Town.
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Where retyping comes from
It almost never starts as a decision. A business begins with a notebook or a spreadsheet. Then it adds an accounting tool, then an email list, then a booking diary, then a shop. Each tool is sensible on its own day. None of them talks to the others. So a person becomes the link between them, and that person retypes.
The sign is simple. If you hear "I just need to copy that across", you are looking at it.
Find it in one afternoon
You do not need a consultant for this first step. Take a sheet of paper and follow one order, one booking or one new customer from the first contact to the last. At each step write down:
- where the information is first written down,
- where it is written down again,
- who does it, and how long it takes them,
- what goes wrong when it is missed.
The list is useful even if you never build anything.
Why it matters more than it looks
Each retyped line is a chance for a typing mistake. A wrong number on an invoice. A booking in one diary and not the other. A customer who is told something different by two people. These are small, but customers notice them.
There is also a slower cost. People who spend part of every day copying information spend less of it on the work you hired them to do.
In short
If you hear ‘I just need to copy that across’, you are looking at it.
Three ways to fix it
Change how you work. Sometimes the answer is one tool instead of three. If a tool you already pay for can do the whole job, use it, and retire the others.
Join what you have. Where two tools are both needed, they can sometimes be connected so that information entered in one appears in the other. This depends on the tools. It is worth asking each supplier before you spend money elsewhere.
Build software around how you work. When your way of working is unusual, or when no ready tool fits, software can be built to match the way your business already runs. That is what business software means to us: it follows your process, you do not bend your process to fit it.
We also say plainly when a ready-made system is the better answer. Where your need is common, such as taking bookings, a ready-made system can be quicker to start with.
What to fix first
Pick the retyping that happens most often, or the one that causes the worst mistakes. Fix that one. Do not try to fix everything at once. A small change that works builds trust in the next one.
What to bring to a conversation
Bring your sheet of paper. Bring the names of the tools you use now, even if you do not like them. Bring one example of something that went wrong. You do not need to know what you want built. You need to be able to describe what is not working.
If you would like help, tell us what you need. A few lines are enough. We will say whether we think you need a change in how you work, a ready-made system, or software built for your business.
Written by Villiers Vision Works, a Cape Town software company for small and growing businesses.
Business software