The best map to success begins with a strong start. Business’ that have their numbers organized, documents in order, and know exactly what steps they will be taking, all from the very start of the year, are the business’ geared up for true success.

In this post, learn eight top expert tips to get your business organized in time for 2016 to arrive!

Organization Tip #1: Start on Your Tax Filing Workload Right Away.

One of the bigger mishaps for both new entrepreneurs to even the most experienced business owners, is procrastinating on taxes or misfiling documents. By getting your documentation organized early on, you will ensure you have all the paperwork in order and have plenty of time to gather any missing documents.

Go a step further then old-fashioned paper filing and file your paper work twice! Electronic filing is a great way to never lose a document again.

Either scan documents at your computer or take quick snaps of receipts on the go!

Organization Tip #2: Tidy up Your Correspondence.

This includes email, texts, snail mail and social direct mail. One great way to approach unaddressed snail mail correspondence is to make a rule: if you touch it, you answer it.

Take the time to analyze what emails you receive that hold no interest to you. Is this email part of a subscription I am no longer interested in or never purposefully signed up for? Unsubscribe at the bottom of said email with a simple click of a button.

Pro-Tip:    If you allot just 5 minutes each day to deleting and filing any emails that are non-correspondence but you want to save you will find your inbox easy to read and organized.  For example, putting coupons you may want to save for later in one massive file, so “deleting all” at a later date doesn’t delete any truly important documents.

Organization Tip #3: Twitter (& Instagram) with More Efficiency.

Despite its supposedly simple concept, many users find Twitter to be perhaps the single most challenging social platform to manage. Luckily, there are many apps that your social media manager can use to help you manage both your Twitter and Instagram accounts.

An example of one app is called Crowdfire, which you can use to unfollow your unfollowers, unfollow inactive accounts and find more active users to follow.

By consolidating apps, you are managing your very social media platforms much more efficiently.

Organization Tip #4: Create a Marketing Calendar to Implement Starting on Day One of the New Year.

The more automated your business becomes, the less loose ends you will have to burn your available time! Marketing is one function that you can plan out up to a year in advance with advanced scheduling tools. Use your data and analytics from this past year and other years (if applicable) to identify what you want to do when.

Automate your email marketing and pre-schedule social posts and monitor results all from a single platform. There are free tools available or, depending on the size of the business or quality of posts you want to present, companies that will manage these consumer building details for you.

Organization Tip #5: Start the New Year with Fogs.

Yes. F.O.G.S., as in “Finance, Operations, Goals, Strategy.” These four elements each play a critical role in your company’s success.

Take a few moments to sit down and identify your major strength and major weakness in each of these four areas. Then make a plan to capitalize on each strength and address each weakness.

Organization Tip #6: Get on Board with Project Management.

Whether you work on one project at a time or always have multiple open flames going, project management can play a crucial role in improving outcomes with everything from marketing to risk management.

And if you do work with a team, whether locally or remotely, using a project management collaboration tool can streamline every team member’s work load and improve contributions.

Organization Tip #7: Get Set up in the Cloud.

Cloud-based data storage is here to stay. Cloud storage solutions offer so many advantages over the old on-site server system. You can access your files from anywhere and any smart device (use our receipt snapshot tip here to easily sync your documents).

You can easily share data or files with others without compromising the security of your cloud. The cloud is also a great place to archive files and documents that you need to keep but no longer access regularly in an e-format (so you can shred all that non-essential paperwork and free up office space!).

Organization Tip #8: Integrate and Consolidate Everywhere You Can.

As you are evaluating which tools work best for your business needs and goals, keep a keen eye peeled for opportunities to integrate and reduce time-consuming tasks.

Take a careful look at any new online or software tool you are considering adding to your existing toolkit. It can help to make a list of the tools you use and check each of those tools to see which other tools they integrate with before making your selection. In this way, you can consolidate your workload still further.

With these eight tools in hand, you can look forward to charting a course through the new year that is less stressful, more productive and also more profitable.