Green to Save Green Tips 71-75

You don’t need to sacrifice profits to go green with your small business. In fact, going green might save your business some money! In this Green to Save Green series, I’m challenging readers to make 101 environmental changes over the next 1001 days.

Here are Tips 71 – 75 – all about banking. For the rest of your challenge tips, head to this post. If you’re making any (or all!) of these changes with your small business, let me know by leaving a comment!

Tip #71: Choose banks with positive green goals. Like with all industries, banking can go green, and I’m not talking about money. Many banks are making positive environmentally-friendly goals. Do a little research so that you can open your business accounts at banks committed to going green. For example, check out PNC’s Thinking green? So are we. page, or go totally green with Green Bank. I urge you to check out your local banks as well!

Tip #72: Offer online payment options. If you have a website, you can easily implement shopping cart tools to help you offer online payment options, which cuts down on checks and invoices (since people can save receipts in their email rather than printing them). You should have free shopping cart options available with your hosting plan, but if you don’t, you can also check out free options with PayPal.

Tip #73: Take your banking online. Almost all banks offer secure online banking these days. As long as you keep your password private, doing your banking online should be extremely safe. Ask to go to paperless banking complete if you can. That way, you won’t be wasting paper every month with your statement. You can always ask them to print the month if you review it online and have a question or need a copy of that specific month for your records.

Tip #74: Pay with your business card (and pay it off every month). There’s nothing wrong with using a credit card – as long as you pay it off every single month in full. If you have enough self-restraint to do that, paying all of your business expenses with a credit card means that you’ll write fewer checks. You’ll just have one big one to write at the end of every month, and you can even pay that online if your credit card company allows online banking. Use this tip with caution – falling into credit card debt can mean that your business loses thousands of dollars.

Tip #75: Keep clear, clean copies of your records. Organization of your business banking is key. Why is this greener? If you aren’t organized with your paperwork, you’ll have to get documents reprinted every time you need them, wasting paper, ink, energy, time, and money. File your statements and loan information properly the first time.

Come back tomorrow for a continuation of this list, or head to this post to read more! Don’t forget to leave a comment if you’re implementing any of these changes in your own life