20 Ways to Cut Business Costs During a Recession

1. Hire college students or interns-Internship programs are a win-win for both sides. You get an ambitious employee who will do monotonous work and they get college credit, experience and hopefully, an excellent reference.

2. Comb the Internet for business forms. Rather than hiring professional writers to produce forms for you, search the Internet for free templates.

3. Seek at least three bids on everything you buy. If you quote a competitor's lower price, your favorite supplier may lower their price to match.

4. Improve your web site. Simply adding relevant content to your site on a regular basis will boost your marketing efforts for little cost.

5. Use laptop computers. Laptop computers on average consume about 90 percent less energy than desktops.

6. Get rid of the fax machine. You can save your company hundreds of dollars a year by using an email faxing service.

7. Recycle your old ink and toner cartridges, and not throwing them out. Also save old copies and use the back side to print out drafts of documents to save on paper costs.

8. Team up with other small business owners to join a co-op insurance purchasing group. This will lower individual health-care costs for your business.

9. Eliminate unused trade magazine subscriptions or dues you're paying to trade organizations.

10. Refinance any high interest business loans you may have accrued.

11. Utilize social media to market your business. The Internet provides several methods of free advertising for your business: social media sites, social bookmarking sites, free blog sites, article directories, etc…

12. Outsource any jobs where a full-time employee is not necessary. This will cut your payroll expenses, health-care costs and space requirements.

13. Cut back on travel expenses. Utilize teleconferences, web-casts, webinars, and Live-Meeting software for presentations and only attend local industry events and workshops.

14. Get advice from your employees. Many times those on the front-lines are aware of areas where money is wasted. Hold a short brainstorming meeting with your staff and discuss any ways the business can cut back. They will appreciate being involved and knowing that you are taking steps to cut costs that don't include laying them off.

15. Utilize telecommuting-If everyone in your company was to work just one day a week from home, you would save 20 percent of your monthly energy costs and at the same time possibly improve employee morale.

16. Don't use a CPA to do your bookkeeping. Either enlist an outside payroll company or use software like Quickbooks to do your own bookkeeping.

17. Consider using part-time staff. They don't require insurance expenses and you can be more flexible with their hours.

18. Be aggressive with past due customer accounts.

19. Shop around for cheaper office space to lease or buy.

20. Go Green. Have a clean energy and Green IT assessment done to decide what areas your company can cut energy consumption and expenditures.