The cost of overhead can put your company in an uncompetitive situation due to the buildup of excessive expenses incurred in the running of your company. Without a breakdown of costs into production and overhead categories, you might not realize how much you’re actually spending on the operations side of running your company. Regular financial reporting and budget variance analyses will help to maintain the appropriate cost structure in a sustained fashion.

Overhead

The costs you incur to run your business and sell your product make up overhead. These are expenses you have even when you aren’t making your product. They include expenses such as rent, marketing, phones, insurance, administrative staff, office equipment, interest, office supplies, etc.

Identify All Overhead

The first step in determining your overhead is to identify it. If you don’t record every expense you have on a budget sheet or other financial report, do so. Start by creating production and overhead reports. Production expenses are costs that apply directly to making your product, such as materials and labor. Next, break down your overhead by function, such as marketing, human resources, information technology, office administration and sales.

Create a Purchasing Process

Assign one person to review and approve purchases so that they can see all expenses that are planned to be made before they are paid. Set policies for spending, such as requiring competitive bids for purchases over a certain dollar amount. Have your purchasing manager shop for better deals on common items you buy. Consider offering a bonus if your purchasing agent meets specific savings targets without sacrificing quality.

Review Contracts

If you outsource functions or sign leases, rebid your contracts annually, even if you end up using the same vendors and suppliers each year. Rebidding contracts prevents longtime contractors from inflating their fees, or encourages them to offer more services to keep your business. Frequently this will result in lower costs. A multi-year contract will usually favor the vendor. So, if you haven’t shopped your insurance in the past two years, do so, and discuss with your current provider how to reduce your premiums. Ask your utilities providers to visit your workplace to perform an audit and recommend how you can cut your monthly water, gas and electric bills. This annual process is a lot of work, but it sure pays off.

Improve your bookkeeping and accounting practices

From the start of the business, ensure that your accounting reports keep you aware of spending and revenue. This will help you analyze where you have over spent and where you can cut down on unnecessary expenditures. Well organized and up-to-date books have benefits beyond tax issues.

Technology will help improve productivity

There are many cloud-based tools now that will help your business save money, such as online invoicing, project management and others. Most vendors will offer a free trial period. The resulting efficiencies will reduce overhead costs.

Keep the head count constant

Efficiency is gained when revenue per employee grows. Technology, lean techniques, process engineering, etc. all are ways to free up time so employees can become more productive without having to add new headcount to grow. What if you could replace your lowest 10% of performers with new people that matched your top 10%? This would result in a huge productivity boost at virtually no incremental cost. There are a lot of techniques to improve productivity, but the point is that constantly growing headcount certainly will result in overhead growth that won’t necessarily result in profitable revenue growth.

Contemplate hiring freelancers or contract employees

There are certain functions in almost any business that can be outsourced to reduce the cost of space and other overhead. If you are hiring a full time employee, there are payroll expenses, health insurance and other costs that may be associated; this will slowly eat into profit.

Keep an eye on energy consumption

Switch off lights and other equipment when not in use. This might reduce energy consumption by 20%. If possible, use laptop computers instead of a standard desktops. Laptops consume approximately 80% less energy.

Reduce your phone bills

Use Skype, Google Chat or other chat services to get in touch with your employees or freelancers. You can also use web conferencing tools, such as GoToMeeting, to meet with clients online or make a presentation. It will significantly reduce your travel cost.

Ask vendors to own “their” inventory

Have vendors keep title to their inventory until sold. Normally inventory acquired from a vendor is held in your warehouse for use in manufacturing or resale to your customers. But why think of it as your inventory? It hasn’t been used yet so why can’t it still be their inventory? Best planning results in “just-in-time” delivery so there is no inventory. But this isn’t always possible, for instance, in industries like retail where a certain amount of inventory is necessary for your customers to by when they walk into your store. But again, why are you paying them and then sitting on their inventory? They need to own the inventory until time of sale.

A dollar gained in revenue is a very good thing assuming it leverages the current cost structure. But remember, only a small portion reaches earnings. A dollar saved from cost, however, goes directly to the bottom line. So while focusing on the top-line, don’t forget to engage in a systematic approach to controlling costs as a way to ensure long-term value creation.