Cost optimisation in a company — a step-by-step review plan

Cost optimisation in a small business starts with accounting data, not with cuts made "by feel". Three areas usually deliver the most: recurring charges that no one remembers, supplier contract terms and tax decisions — the form of taxation, ZUS reliefs and the method of VAT settlement. Below we propose an organised cost review plan that can be completed within a month.

Step one: a cost map for the last 12 months

A summary from KPiR (tax book of revenue and expenditure) or from the accounting ledgers shows where the money really flows. Group expenses into several categories:

• fixed — rent, lease, subscriptions, salaries, accounting,
• variable — materials, subcontractors, transport, sales commissions,
• one-off — equipment, renovations, training,
• public-law — taxes and ZUS contributions.

For each item three columns are enough: annual amount, contract end date and responsible person. The summary alone often reveals duplicate subscriptions, unused licences or contracts that auto-renewed on worse terms.

Quick savings: subscriptions, contracts and bank charges

1. Subscription review — software, cloud, graphic tools, telephony. Licences assigned to people no longer in the company are a typical loss.
2. Renegotiation with suppliers — 2–3 months before the contract ends, it is worth collecting competing quotes and only then returning to the current supplier.
3. Early-payment discount — if a supplier offers, say, 2% for payment in 7 days instead of 30, converted to an annual rate this is usually a better return than a bank deposit. The condition: the company must have a cash cushion.
4. Account and payments — compare charges for the account, foreign transfers and currency conversions. With foreign clients the difference in the exchange rate can be larger than the transfer fee itself.

Deductions lost through formal mistakes

Part of the savings simply comes from not losing the right to a tax-deductible expense. The PIT Act excludes from costs the part of expenditure where a payment that should have gone through a bank account was made in cash, sent to an account outside the register of VAT payers (the so-called White List) or bypassed the mandatory split payment mechanism (Article 22p of the PIT Act). The split payment obligation applies to invoices above PLN 15,000 gross covering goods and services listed in Annex 15 to the VAT Act.

A simple internal procedure — checking the contractor's bank account on the White List before each larger transfer and recording the result — costs a few minutes and protects against the loss of a deduction and liability for the contractor's VAT.

Tax decisions as a source of savings

In many sole proprietorships, after salaries, the largest item is taxes and contributions. Here savings come from choice, not from cutting:

• form of taxation — scale, flat tax (podatek liniowy) and ryczałt deliver different burdens for the same revenue, including the health contribution; changes are made within statutory deadlines, as described in the article on changing the form of taxation; sample calculations for contracts are in the article on what is left from a B2B invoice,
• ZUS reliefs — new businesses can pay only the health contribution for 6 months and then use the preferential base for 24 calendar months; afterwards it is worth checking Mały ZUS Plus (Small ZUS Plus), available with revenue up to PLN 120,000 in the previous year,
• one-off expensing of equipment — assets with an initial value up to PLN 10,000 can be charged to costs immediately, in the month of putting them into use, instead of being depreciated (Article 22d(1) of the PIT Act),
• loss settlement — a business loss reduces income in the following five years, which matters when planning investment in the early years,
• VAT cash flow — with long payment terms from clients the cash method helps, and with unpaid invoices bad debt relief does.

Own team or outsourced service

At a small scale, employing someone on an employment contract for accounting, HR or IT can be more expensive than outsourcing. A fair comparison should take into account not only salary but also:

• the full employer cost (contributions, holidays, cover during sickness),
• software and the workstation,
• liability for errors — usually covered by insurance at an accounting firm,
• the owner's time spent on supervision.

On the other hand, an outsourced service requires a clearly defined scope: an unclear contract leads to surcharges for "additional work" that cancel out the saving.

What not to cut

Not every saving is a good one. Cutting spending on liability insurance, personal data protection, health and safety training or tax support can bring costs many times higher — in the form of penalties, arrears with interest or disputes with clients. The same is true of tools that sales depend on: a cheaper platform that loses orders is not a saving.

Sample 30-day plan

1. Week 1 — print 12-month cost report, group it and list contracts with end dates.
2. Week 2 — cancel redundant subscriptions, send requests for quotation to 2–3 key suppliers.
3. Week 3 — tax review with the accountant: form of taxation for the next year, ZUS reliefs, VAT settlement method.
4. Week 4 — renegotiations, implementation of a payment procedure (White List, split payment) and deciding who updates the summary each quarter.

Example: the owner of a design studio with two people on mandate contracts (umowa zlecenie), after such a review drops three unused licences, moves telephony to a cheaper operator and — after calculations with the accountant — changes the form of taxation from the new year. None of these decisions affects the quality of client work.

How Good Balance can help

As part of accounting advisory, we prepare a cost summary from the company's books, compare taxation and contribution variants, and flag expenses at risk of being excluded from costs. The results are presented as a short action plan with saving amounts.