Archive For: December, 2009

Are you in control of your Numbers?

It goes back to that old adage – you must be organised. It sucks but unfortunately it’s the only way that you can feel no stress about your numbers. It’s the ‘not knowing” that stresses everyone out. What do I mean by “not knowing”?

Well, do you know how much revenue you made last month? Are you aware of all your expenses that were incurred? Are you aware of the money you owe and what is owed to you? If you are not aware of these things, you are not running a business, you are living in a fantasy world. Harsh I know but the truth hurts!

If a feeling of dread overcame you when you read the above, you’re probably thinking, what do I do now? Simple, follow the steps below.

1. Collect all your paperwork together and sort into piles that relate to:

a. Supplier invoices and payments
b. Customer invoices and payments
c. Employee payments
d. Bank & credit card statements, BAS, ATO correspondence

2. Make the decision to either sort the mess out yourself or hire a bookkeeper / Virtual Assistant that can sort it all out for you. Unsure what to look for in a bookkeeper? Click here and subscribe to receive a special report on what to look for.

3. Do you have a computerised accounting software package? You need to have access to this (or give your bookkeeper access to it) to get yourself up to date.

4. Enter all relevant information from a, b & c above.

5. Take your bank and credit card statements, and check (reconcile) that all transactions are accounted for in your accounting software program.

Even if you do not feel comfortable with reconciling as a process you can simply use a bank register (or credit card register) within your accounting software to check that each item that is on your bank statement (and/or credit card statement) also appears in your bank register. Then you can hand over to someone else to complete the reconciliation process (knowing that as far as you can tell all of the transactions are entered). Remember that the bank (or credit card) statement is considered the holy grail (except of course if there are cash transactions involved). All of your statements must be checked (reconciled) in order for your records to be accurate and to complete accurate BAS returns.

6. Okay, so if you have completed this yourself give yourself a huge pat on the back (insert glass of wine, beer or chocolate, whatever is your congratulatory gift to yourself! – I like chocolate myself!) If you have handed this task over to anyone else and it is now completed, congratulate yourself (as above) and them , pay their bill promptly and look forward to maintenance mode, because you do not want to be in this position again, do you?

7. Maintenance mode, well this needs an entire article so stay tuned for this. But, the important thing to remember is that it is much better for you and your business to “KNOW” your numbers then go into a cold sweat and have no idea!

Analysis Paralysis, Or Just Plain Fear?

Are you experiencing Analysis Paralysis or avoidance issues in your business? This is something that I have seen with many businesses – you can get so involved with analyzing everything, that you forget you are in business to achieve something – like making money and helping your clients.

Of course, you could just be avoiding doing something – and that has the same impact as analysis paralysis.

Analysis Paralyisis occurs when you become obsessed with knowing EVERYTHING there is to know about something. When you get caught in this trap, you spend all your time analysing, and no time doing – and this is not healthy. Read more

Business Planning For 2010

Given we are in December, I thought it a great time to look at what planning we, as business people, will be undertaking over the next month or so to get ready for 2010.

Are you going to do any planning? Do you take time out from your ‘day to day’ tasks to review your business at all? If not, WHY NOT?

Planning is key to business success! The one phenomenon I have observed in my business (and techie) career is that when we don’t take time out to look ahead and actually see where we’ve pointed our ship, we will often find a iceberg to hit.

I know that the term Strategic Planning can seem scary – but really, all it means is to develop a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. Read more