Altruism aside, the reason that businesses exist is to make money. It really is that simple, and anyone who believes otherwise has either never done business or won't be doing business for much longer. There are several very basic ways that most businesses can improve their ability to make money:

1) Acquire more customers and sell more product.

2) Increase the price of your product.

3) Streamline the processes that go into making that product, thereby reducing the time (read: money) that goes into the production and increasing the profit margin.

Since this isn't a sales blog, and your market - and competition - rarely allow you to significantly raise your prices, we'll focus on ways to streamline the processes that go into producing your product. Let's be clear on one thing. Everything that every employee does for your business is a process. Answering the phone is a process. Billing your customers is a process. Filling out forms is a process. If you really want to shave a little bit of time off of each and every task, all it takes is a little bit of organization and creativity.

Every Second Counts

When it comes to how you handle your business forms, the organizational aspects are where you're likely to have success in improving your company's bottom line. You may only save a few seconds from each individual execution of your standard business forms, but when you take a few seconds and multiply it by the number of times you fill out a particular form, those seconds definitely start to add up.

File Under N For Neatness

One of the simplest ways of saving time on your paperwork is to maintain a neat, organized and clutter-free work area. Every second you take looking for that one particular stamp, or the staple remover, or anything else you use regularly is a second that will never contribute to your company's fiscal viability. By keeping everything exactly where you need it to be, your productivity has nowhere to go but up!

Form and Function

How many times every day do you have to get up from your desk and walk to another location in your company to get supplies or other materials you need? Try finding room at your desk to keep a quantity of those supplies and materials handy, because every step you take between Point A and Point B leaves a trail of seconds that will never land on the plus side of the ledger.

The basic principle of organization and time management can be applied to virtually every aspect of your job. All you need is the willingness to try doing things a little differently, and surely that's not too much to ask in the pursuit of profit.

Go ahead, take a few seconds and give it a little thought.