Latest News | Confident Cashflows

Great Feedback from one our valued Performance Review clients

January 20, 2012 By Tracey Loubser Leave a Comment

We are super excited to receive some great feedback from one of our most valued clients, at our standard 6 month feedback review! Check out a few comments …..

We scored 9/10 for the Performance reviews performed, with comments like : YES – Definitely in response to “In comparison to when Confident Cashflows was not part of your team, Do you feel more informed and confident regarding your business future and equipped to improve business Profitability in the future?”

And in response to : “If you have received great service from Confident Cashflows, please feel free to share your thoughts and feelings on how we have helped you in your business.” We received a comment : “It is great, I now know with confidence what is REALLY happening in my business and the areas I have to pay attention to”.

Filed Under: Accounting Tagged With: business plan, financial management systems, testimonials

Is your business financially bloated?

January 17, 2012 By Tracey Loubser Leave a Comment

Another happy customer : Thanks Pauline!!
Although I am good with numbers, there is not always time to do such an indepth analysis as Tracey did. Tracey’s evaluation made it patently clear as to what my sales targets need to be, and also the areas of my business that had become financially bloated from a cost perspective. Well done Tracey.

Filed Under: Profits, Testimonials Tagged With: business plan, Financial Health Check

What’s missing from your relationship with your accountant?

January 9, 2012 By Tracey Loubser Leave a Comment

What’s missing from your relationship with your accountant? I recently held a workshop with a range of different business owners and I asked them what their relationship with their accountant was like and what they thought was missing. None of the answers given surprised me. Perhaps you feel like this as well.

One participant said : “I would like more feedback. As it stands, the only feedback I receive is annually and effectively the feedback is purely tax related. Now that I think about it – I think I have trained my accountants to only give this feedback as generally the questions I ask my accountant are:

How are the tax returns going?
What is the liability going to be?
How much is this all going to cost!”

So maybe in some ways we get what we ask for and maybe we don’t ask enough questions, or more importantly, the right questions to get the feedback we actually need. The feedback that is actually useful to our business.

The feedback from your accountant is important but it is directly related to what you are asking for. A lot of the time small business owners are really sensitive in terms of how much their accountant charges them so if you are going to pay for that time, rather spend it asking the right questions.

Don’t let them dominate the conversation in terms of what’s happening in your tax return and where you are getting deductions. Ask them to tell you how much tax you have to pay, and that’s it – who cares about the details. You don’t have to learn about the tax law, he needs to know the tax law and that’s why he is the accountant. Rather spend the time with him asking him the more pertinent questions like:

How is my business performance like this year compared to last year?
What can you see that could improve my cash flow?
If you had to give me 3 areas of my business I had to look at, what would you suggest I do?

And remember, it’s really important to wrap up your year end as soon as possible after June. If you are seeing your accountant a few months after year end – for example six months after year end, the first months’ worth of information is already 18 months old – it doesn’t apply anymore. You should actually be having these conversations more regularly during the year and looking at current figures more regularly. Reviewing your business performance is not something that should be done once a year with your accountant, if you want your business to grow NOW – it’s something you should be doing NOW.

Filed Under: Accounting, Business Financial Mangement, Financial Management Tagged With: account management, accountant, business accounts, financial literacy, Financial Management, Perth

A few “not so easily impressed” Pricing for Profit workshop participant feedback.

January 5, 2012 By Tracey Loubser Leave a Comment

1. Today has shown me that all of us in the office tend to just get on with getting stuff done on a day-to-day basis and we don’t sit down and take the time that we need to budget, look at how much things are costing us and how much we are earning from it. I think without that information what’s the point of putting so much time and effort in the day-to-day stuff done when we aren’t getting accurate information about what we are actually getting from it – so today was a good reminder to take a step back and take a look and track our costs in more detail.

2: I came here believing that I didn’t really know what was going on in my business and now I really know that I don’t know what is going on in my business! It has confirmed that if I don’t do something in this area in terms of understanding the figures, the cash flow, and all those things that come together, unless I start to work towards that, the goals that I have for next year simply won’t happen. I’ll still be running that hamster wheel in the same way and that’s not good enough. I might as well close my doors tomorrow if I don’t take action. I have to take it up to the next level and this is very much been on my mind that this is what I need to do. So after having met Tracey and todays workshop, I now know this is one of the steps that I need to take.

3: Today was great! It really highlighted and confirmed a lot of the things I’ve been working on and brought them home. It also gave me more information on certain things that I need to put into place. I know now that I can increase the cost of a few of my services to even out my costs so I’ll be in a better position.

4: Probably the biggest thing that I learned is how important it really is to look at things on a regular basis. Monthly reviews instead of looking at the end of the year and wondering what do all of these figures mean. So monthly reviews are on the action plan.

Filed Under: Profits, Testimonials

How do I identify and communicate effective targets to my staff?

December 27, 2011 By Tracey Loubser Leave a Comment

Communicating effective targets to your staff helps everyone work towards your 'happy day'!

Identifying and communicating effective targets to your staff is the key to making the profit that you want in your business. Accountants often talk about a ‘break-even point’, something I call your ‘happy day’. This is the day of the month when you know that for the rest of the month, you are making a profit. You have earned enough to cover all your costs and you are past the ‘break-even point’. That’s why I call it your ‘happy day’.

By working out when your ‘happy day’ is, how much you need to earn to break-even and then blast into profit, you will be able to effectively identify and communicate targets to your staff allowing you to make the profit that you want in your business.

Filed Under: Accounting, Cash Flow, Profits Tagged With: accountants, Business, cash flow, communicate, Confident Cashflows, financial position, profit, staff, targets

How do service based industries earn passive income?

December 13, 2011 By Tracey Loubser Leave a Comment

Your knowledge can produce a passive income stream for your business

When we offer a service we are continually living in the ‘hour-for-money’ mindset. But as a service provider it is possible to generate income in other ways. As service based providers we are basically selling our knowledge and expertise. The key to service based industries earning a passive income is to package your knowledge and expertise in your specific business and turn it into a product.

Sit down, put it ‘on paper’ and develop a system that allows people to do for themselves what you essentially do for them. Make it an easy, step-by-step system that may include things like:

Your top 10 tips
The key to success in your area
How-to guides and workbooks

The product should be something that people can buy while you sleep. They should be able to purchase it through your website and it will enable them to do what you do on a DIY basis. The key is to make your product a content driven, quick and easy solution to their problem. Give them direction in terms of what you do in your business, the flow of what you do to help people and make it DIY.

Once you have generated that product, you can generate the passive income that you want for your service based business.

Take a look at a few of my products to see what I mean and get some ideas flowing.

Filed Under: Cash Flow, Profits Tagged With: Business Services, Confident Cashflows, diy system, expertise, financial education, knowledge, passive income, service business, Small business, Tracey Loubser

3 steps to increase cash flow in your business

December 7, 2011 By Tracey Loubser Leave a Comment

We would all enjoy increased cash flow in our business, right? However, this is confusing to many business owners who often have no idea of where to start.

The first step to improving cash flow is to make sure you are earning the right margins on the product or service that you provide. Examine the costs involved in providing your product or service and review how much you are truly making in gross profit.

The second step is to take a reality check of what is actually happening in your bank account. Consider how long it takes you to pay your suppliers, how long stock is sitting on your floor (product based industry), and how long it takes for customers to pay you. Reality checks like this are possible with a simple calculation by either your accountant or bookkeeper.

The third step is to monitor what is actually happening in your cash flow. Think about what is happening with your margins, monitor what is actually happening in terms of the difference in the time it takes for you to pay your suppliers and the time it takes for your customers to pay you. Also consider how long stock is sitting on your floor.

The more regularly you monitor these aspects of your business, the more you will see how these variables are affecting your cash flow.

Filed Under: Accounting, Cash Flow Tagged With: accountant, bank account, bookkeeper, Business, business owners, cash flow, profit, Small business, Tracey Loubser

How do I ensure my business is cost efficient?

November 28, 2011 By Tracey Loubser 2 Comments

Understanding whether your business is cost efficient is obviously the key to ensuring you are making your goal profit.

Firstly, you need to understand that there are two types of costs. The first are variable costs: costs that increase and decrease as we sell our product or service. For example, in a service based industry a variable cost, a cost that increases and decreases as you make more sales, is the cost of your subcontractors. If you’re a product based industry, an example would be the cost of the product that you buy and freight which will increase and decrease as you make more sales.

The second type are fixed costs. These are items such as your rent. No matter how high or low your sales are your rent will remain the same month to month. You need to consider the efficiency of your fixed costs and how these fixed costs are either feeding or draining the profit in your business.

Understanding these two elements is the key to understanding and making sure your business is cost efficient.

Filed Under: Accounting, Business Financial Mangement, Financial Management, Profits Tagged With: Business, cost efficient, Financial Management, fixed costs, profit, understanding, variable costs

How do I overcome ‘Missing Link Syndrome’?

November 16, 2011 By Tracey Loubser 1 Comment

Every business spends money on either a bookkeeper or an accountant and in some cases, both. So, why do 87% of businesses fail because they don’t understand their numbers? This is what I call the ‘Missing Link Syndrome’. The missing link is you, the business owner. The information you are missing is what is happening on a monthly basis, throughout the year. In order to be successful it is your responsibility to know what is actually happening in your business.

How do you do this?

Review what is happening in your business on a monthly basis
Regularly print out your Profit and Loss Statement
Ask your bookkeeper or accountant specific questions in relation to your reports
Initiate discussions with your bookkeeper or accountant to find out how your business is really performing – in real time
If you don’t understand the terms they are using, ask them to speak a language you can understand

You can’t just leave it up to your accountant and bookkeeper to deliver this information; it is your responsibility to fill the missing link in your business, to find out what’s really happening and how your business is performing. Once you begin looking at your reports regularly and asking the right questions you will be able to get the correct information you need to increase profitability and cash flow.

Filed Under: Accounting, Business Financial Mangement, Cash Flow, Financial Management Tagged With: accountant, accounting services, Australia, bookkeeper, bookkeeping, bookkeeping services, budget, Business Services, Financial Management, financial management systems, Perth, Small business, Tracey Loubser

Why budgets in business are a must have!

November 7, 2011 By Tracey Loubser 2 Comments

Many business owners fail to set a budget and don’t consider this to be important for them. They either think they are not big enough to need one or they have one ‘in their head’. So, why is it important for every business to set a budget?

A budget is the success plan for a business. As the famous proverb says: ‘Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.’

A budget helps you plan to reach goals within your business, making sure you are earning the income you want and are in control of the costs related to that income.

Firstly, you need to know how many items/hours you must sell per month to reach your goal income. This is phased over a 12 month period. If you are currently not able to work out this part of how you will earn your goal income, then you are not setting your business up for success.

Secondly, you need to match the costs related to your goal income in order to achieve that goal. If you’re a service based industry, you will have direct costs related to each hour that you charge out. You need to work out exactly how much each hour actually costs you i.e. subcontractor/staff costs, rent, electricity and other regular costs such as subscriptions and memberships.

By having a firm plan in place you can easily see, over the year, in which months you are making a profit and you can track this against each individual month to see how your business actually performed in relation to your budget. When you are able to see what you planned and what actually happened, you will then be able to easily identify any differences – where they occurred, why they happened and how you can adjust your budget or spending to get on track.

As the business owner you know your business and can come up with the answers you need. You are the one who will know if there is a seasonal impact, a change in the economy, or any other relevant variables.

Remember, if you do not have control over your costs you won’t know if you are on track to your goal profit. A budget also helps you to identify the standard for cash flow within your business. You cannot maintain cash flow without setting a plan in terms of what is happening with your income and expenses.

So setting a budget is really important for making sure you achieve the profit and obviously the cash flows that you want in your business.

Filed Under: Accounting, Budgets, Business Financial Mangement, Financial Management Tagged With: accountant, Australia, budget, Business, business financial plan, Business Services, cash flow, Perth, Small business, small business financial management, Tracey Loubser