Finance is a core pillar of strategy, so you need to make sure you get a hold on this as soon as you can!

Are you struggling with getting a system in place to manage your cashflow and give yourself peace of mind?

Well, we’ve been there too!

It’s not until we started working on strategy that we started thinking about it.  People think about growing big and fast but not about how to make the business secure. You might have an accountant, but this isn’t going to mean everything is sorted from a financial perspective, you need to think about what data you need to measure whether you are profitable and scalable - the data you need to make decisions as a BUSINESS OWNER.

Here are a few things to get you started:

If your business is new, before you have started generating revenue, have at least have one bank account that is just for your business. This way you can make sure all of your transactions are running through one place which will make it much easier to monitor and will also be a huge help when you do start to grow and need a business account.

When you do start to generate revenue, you need to get yourself set up on something like Xero or Quickbooks, which are great tools to help with your bookkeeping. Do this as early as possible to save you a lot of time and pain in the future! You also want this to be set up in a way that is easy for your accountant to refer to. This kind of cloud-based software puts everything into different categories for you (e.g. maintenance, mortgage payments, rents receivable) and you can link it to your bank feeds so you are not using up a load of time having to do it all manually.

Make sure you are checking in on your financials at the end of each month, not just at the end of the financial year! The Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet you receive 12-18 months down the line from your accountant is old data so there is nothing you can action using this information. Make sure you have all of your transactions organised and reconciled so you can see up-to-date information about your account(s) as easily as possible.

Have photos of your receipts & invoices and give your bookkeeper access to these. Make sure they understand what you need to see each month.

Lots of biz owners are creative, they don’t want their heads buried in spreadsheets but if you get this set up right, you won’t need to! It's painful to go through the process of setting it all up to get to the point that you can get all of your data in one easy to read dashboard each month... but when you get it, it will really free you to focus on growing your business in a sustainable!

Getting this initial set up process sorted can be a very painful to begin with but it is something you really need to do so you are able to take your business to the next level.

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