Three Top Tips for business owners
Keep accurate, real-time, records.
Accurate record keeping is paramount to keeping on top of your business finances, and embracing technology is your key to staying in control. Cloud-based software like Xero will allow you to work with your accountant so that you have a clear idea of how your business is doing. Real-time, acurate data helps you forecast for big events for such as employing new members of staff or expanding a product or service offering—it’s also great for focusing in on profit and reviewing costs.
Keeping business and personal accounts separate is highly encouraged here. Having your business finances going through your personal account makes keeping track of your business finances very difficult. There is a risk that expenditure which is allowable to reduce taxes could be missed.
Using a receipt capture tool can help ensure that you stay on top of your expenditure, and help make sure you keep a record of any outgoings and any VAT that needs to be reclaimed.
After all, how can you know how well your business is doing if you only complete your accounts once a year and that is being done months after the year end date?
2. Build up a cash reserve for rainy days.
This may seem like a luxury when you’re in the midst of start-up but ensuring you have even a small cash reserve can be the difference between survival and failure.
Without doubt in business, things will go wrong, suppliers may not deliver as agreed, staff who you’ve heavily invested in will leave and customers may be enticed elsewhere. If there is one thing that can be relied on it’s that things will go wrong, there will be bumps, sometimes craters in the road ahead and how you deal with these issues will be critical.
Having trusted advisors, you’re able to call on is of course very useful but having some cash in the bank for these eventualities can also be very helpful. The amount to keep aside will differ depending on your business and its monthly outgoings but this is something that you can build into forecasting to ensure you have that safety net.
3. Plan out your day.
Taking a moment before you commence work to list out the tasks you have to get through in order of priority can be an incredibly effective tool.
It’s very easy as a business owner to get swept along and to prioritise easy tasks that give you the satisfaction of getting things done.
There’s a lot to be said about how this is tackled and we’d be happy to share some more tips but the key here is to make a conscious effort to do this first off. What you set out to do may not always go to plan (life always seems to find a way to get in the way of best laid plans) but that’s OK, tomorrow is another day to go back to that list.
A final thought on this and an amazing tip we’ve learnt along the way is to give yourself a finish time and plan in “me time”. Well, that’s two tips but they are both intrinsically linked together.
Doing this will ensure that the time you are working is more focused and it will also help avoid burn-out. Again, this will not always work out, running a business can be all-consuming, we know this all too well, however, if you’re running on empty, are you giving your business the attention is needs?
Being a business owner can be a very lonely place. We understand this and it’s why Strategic Support is one of our more requested for services. We also provide a Virtual FD Service which gives small businesses the luxury of an experienced FD to use as a sounding block whenever they need it. If you’d like to hear more about these services please get in touch.
These posts are to serve as a guide, they should not be taken as professional advice.