New Year = New Year Resolutions!!!

Mine is the usual one, to lose weight, trim the fat. 

To join the local gym was £50 registration fee with further £57 per month membership fee.  So for a total of £744 over the year I get to use the tools, have “limited” access to the expert Fitness Trainer (at an additional cost of £10 per fitness plan devised) to show me how to use the tools to get the results I’m working for. 

So what about the New Year resolutions for your business?

Would you be able to trim the fat from your business for £744 per year?

Yes and you would get some additional benefits!!!!!

Management Accountants are trained business accounting experts who can help you to analyse where the costs within your business are congealing (like fat cells) and how they can be lessened or even removed.  Unlike a Treadmill, the management accountant can respond to any business situation where as the treadmill can move on the flat or at a incline.  Similar to the Treadmill with its various speeds, you can control the speed at which you alleviate or eliminate the cost reduction plans within your business.

Further comparisons include:

• A treadmill is static where as a management accountant can travel to your business and also around it. 
• You can have unlimited email access to your management accountant to ask those quick questions unlike the fitness trainer.
• A treadmill mainly concentrates on cardio workouts whereas a management accountant is much more versatile and covers operations, marketing, sales as well as finance.
• Trimming the fat with a treadmill is expensive – shopping for new clothes when you drop a size – whereas with a management accountant you should make back your initial outlay which generates further cash in your business.

If you are interested in having a business health check, please contact me at su@businessimprovementstrategies.co.uk or on 01480 812112.

I was chatting to an executive chauffer the other day – no not mine although it would be nice.  He was telling me about his past business enterprises and the path which led him to his current career. 

Coming out of the conversation was a recurring theme regarding the role of his accountants and how he felt he had been let down by them.  He’d had contact with one of his accountants only once a year when the accounts were due (and the bill paid).  Another accountant couldn’t (or wouldn’t) give him the business assistance he needed and requested. 

There are many accountants offering a wide range of services to the small business sector, so it is vital that you find the one that works best with you.

At BIS we like to work with fellow small business owners, providing them with the service they need as well as the service they want.  This is one of the reasons that we tailor our business accounting packages to the individual business – why pay for what you don’t want or need?  We also like to be in regular contact with you – either face to face, written communication etc and on a monthly, quarterly or an ad-hoc basis.

In addition to the usual accounting services – accounts, monthly reports, vat returns etc, BIS offers a range of business services including coaching, personal development planning.  We can be there at your board meetings to provide a third party unbiased view of your business – but only if that is what you want.

Sometimes when it’s your own blood, sweat and tears it’s hard to stay objective – we can help!

At BIS, we believe that the role of the small business accountant is to assist their clients to achieve their goals – by you staying in business you are helping BIS to stay in business – what a partnership!

If you would like more information about how BIS can help you and your business, please contact me at su@businessimprovementstrategies.co.uk or on 01480 812112.
 

As a small business owner, if I don’t work, the business gets no income, which means there is no money to pay my salary.  So is it best for my business for me to continue working???

NO!!! 

If I work continually, without a break, then I will become stagnant, tired, not able to think clearly, lacking in focus and ultimately unable to give my clients the best accounting advice/assistance.

For three years I had deferred taking a proper holiday as I kept thinking
“. . what happens if there is no money in the business?”
“. . I should work while I have business/clients”
to highlight just a couple of excuses.  Yes, excuses because that’s exactly what they were.  Steven Covey wrote a book called “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and Habit 7 is about sharpening the saw.  Put simply it is about renewing your energy so you can increase your capacity, generate new ideas, react quickly and proactively to changing circumstances.

So while relaxing on the aeroplane, returning home after a break in paradise (well paradise to me) I began to plan how to achieve a salary

I concluded it was about two things:

1.  Aligning my business goals to my personal goals
    Business = make money
    Personal = holiday in paradise
2. Understanding what I needed to do through my business to achieve No.1

The outcome focuses on Budgets, well more importantly the variance to the targets I have set myself through my business.

My main target is to save the equivalent of one month’s salary (gross so including PAYE/NIC) within in the business to enable my monthly salary to be paid despite there being no revenue into the business.

So the type of information I need over the next 11 months is:

•    I need to work a set number of days at a set rate; what is the effect of a lower rate but more days?  
•    If I work fewer days than planned in the first three months of the year, how many do I need to work in the remainder?
•    How many new clients do I need to take on?  At what level of income to the business?
•    How much advertising can I afford?  At what success rate?
•    What are my options if my monitoring shows my target may not be achieved?

If you would like my assistance to align and achieve your business and personal goals, please contact me at su@businessimprovementstrategies.co.uk or on 01480 812112.