2017 Starting Tips

Evaluate your goals and business plan to set your small business up for a successful financial year ahead.

If you are a small business owner, odds are that juggling the day-to-day demands of running your business might mean you do not enough time left in the day to think and strategise for the future.
Although it can be difficult to fit in, scheduling time to review, plan and prioritise for the year ahead is crucial in both tracking and meeting your business goals. Here are some key things to consider in your planning process.

Learn from your FY16 tax return – Your most recent tax return is an instrumental resource and looking retrospectively at the financial information for the past year should help inform your financial objectives and business plan for FY17.
Profits and losses – Identify the profitable parts of your business as well as those that are underachieving. Look at superfluous expenses that you sustained, evaluate current systems and streamline processes to cut costs and then look to invest in the stronger parts of your business.

Cash-flow trends – Cash-flow management is one of the biggest issues for small business owners. Look at means to ease the strain of cash-flow on your business, such as revising supplier terms and customer terms.

Bookkeeping habits – How did you keep your records for FY16? If the end of financial year just past was a challenge, you may want to re-think your bookkeeping habits. Sound bookkeeping will permit you to get a dynamic, regular and up-to-date overview on how your business is performing. If you haven’t already, consider switching to a cloud accounting solution to centralise financial data and take the pain out of bookkeeping.

Know your competitors and your industry – Know where you stand in your industry category or location –  we can help you recognize industry-specific challenges and benchmark your business against the turn-over and growth rates of competitors in your category.

Get to know your clients more closely – highlight your key customer demographics and their spending pattern, allowing you to develop the right communications and identify new target markets.

So if you’re one of the many small business owners gearing up for the new year, good luck with your planning. It may feel burdensome at times, but the extra work you put in now will all be worthwhile come a successful financial year 2017.

Call Tax Accountants Cranbourne at 1300 300 106 today.