Category recruit the right people

Entries 15 Total

Cost Cutting for Small Business – Payment Terms

Aug 24, ’07 3:37 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Boomer Business, Business Ideas, Contractor, E-Commerce, Entrepreneur, Finance, Freelancer, Generation-Y, Home Business, Lifestyle, Outsourcing, Personal Business, Relationships, SOHO/SMB/SME/Micro, Self-employed, Small Business / SOHO, Social Entrepreneur, Sole-Trader, Start-Up, Suppliers, Virtual Assistants, avoid growing pain, bootstrap, do a reality check, do cost cutting, do credit control, find funding, grow your business, handle problems, lower overheads, outsource effectively, plan cash-flow, plan your business, recruit the right people, start-up in business, use online IT

There are two ways to get better payment terms from your suppliers – make sure you know what the pricing is and negotiate the payment terms last, without warning. Most businesses do not expect small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal businesses to negotiate payment terms, so you have the element of surprise on your side – and it makes you look more professional.

Firstly there is the extended payment term, of 60, 90 and 180 days – see if your supplier will allow any of those terms. Even if they only give you 60 days, you can always go back after 3-4 month using this payment terms in which you have shown to be trustworthy. If it is declined and only 30 days are offered – because you have no history – then this is the perfect scenario of our second method.

Early payment discounts of 2% if you pay within 7 days. This is like a 24% p.a. discount on the invoice value, not a bad way to compensate for the overdraft interest charges from your bank.

Surly you supplier is interested in your business, and is not going to decline both offers – you win either way – if they decline, then look for a new supplier. Because you are not only helping yourself with your cash-flow, but theirs too.

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Small Business Failure – Reason: Cash-Flow

Aug 24, ’07 11:37 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Failure, Health Check, Outsourcing, Small Business / SOHO, Start-Up, Virtual Assistants, avoid growing pain, bootstrap, deal with taxes, do a SWOT plan, do a reality check, do bookkeeping., do credit control, grow your business, handle problems, lower overheads, not to do it!, outsource effectively, plan cash-flow, plan your business, recruit the right people, start-up in business, use online IT

The first post in this mini series is related to this issue of cash-flow and so will be many that follow. Cash-flow is the central and most critical management objective for every small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal business.

T o perform this small business health-check, ask your self the following questions:

  • Do I have a written plan and cash-flow forecast for my business? As I said before, without it it is like driving with your eyes shut.
  • Am I efficient in achieving those aims? We often allow non-core issues and irrelevant stuff to “steal” our time, or we are so overwhelmed by work that we do not have the time to stand back and look at our small business – take the time and make those decisions.
  • Do you have a feel how my small business works financially? If not, you must be feeling uncomfortable most of the time, again take the time and feel better about your small business.
  • When did I plan and monitor my cash-flow last? You need to do this at least once a week or if something happens that is not in the plan. Check your cash-flow each time before you make a bigger purchase or hire staff which is not in the plan, you will quiet easily see if you can afford to do it or not.
  • How much reserves does my business have? The best peace of mind is when your small business has substantial reserves, do you have any or are you at least planning to get a 2-3 month reserve buffer?
  • Have I re-negociated my terms with my suppliers? What if your suppliers gave you 60 or even 90 days payment terms – put that in your cash-flow and smile, it’s instant reserve. You need to pay your suppliers on time, only then will they trust you enough to give you the extra long payment terms.
  • Am I chasing my clients for payment adequately? Do you know the average number of days you clients need to pay you? Give incentives – 2 % off if you pay within 7 days – try and keep your average well below 30 days. If you have not enough time to do credit control outsource it.
  • Do I need my overdraft? If you get better payment terms fro your suppliers and do a better job at credit control, you may not need your overdraft anymore, which will save you a lot of money. Don’t cancel your overdraft, but make sure you only pay for it when and if you use it – shop around. On those terms you should get an overdraft, even if you do not need it, so if something unexpected happens you got the cash-flow reserve.

The importance of your cash-flow situation can not be overestimated, as long as you can pay your bills you are in business - as the saying goes: Cash Is King!

You can see other reasons for small business and personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants failures in my Health Check Category, if you can add to this list please do so, I would welcome your comments.

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Accounting and Accountants for Business Start-Ups and Small Business

Aug 21, ’07 2:04 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Accounting, Outsourcing, Software as a Service, Start-Up, Web Technology, WinWeb, deal with taxes, do a SWOT plan, do a reality check, do bookkeeping., grow your business, not to do it!, outsource effectively, plan cash-flow, plan your business, recruit the right people, start-up in business, use online IT

I get many questions about bookkeeping and accounting for small business and start-ups, here are a couple of things you should consider before making your decision:

What do you want to achieve? Do you want to:

  1. Do you just want to collect your receipts and other documents and than hand it over to someone else?
  2. Are you happy to fill in a simple online forms and have the double entry done by an bookkeeper or accountant?
  3. Or do you want to do the accounting yourself and have the accountant prepare your tax-returns for you?

Each of these options is OK, as long as you do not relinquish all your responsibility to the other party when you outsource. You need to keep your books up-to-date, so you know where you small business is going and so you can make good and informed decisions.

If you are considering option 2. then their are products on the market that can help you, one of them is our AccountsOffice- Lite Edition ( currently still called CashBook), for a full tri-ledger accounting system you can use our AccountsOffice Standard Edition, both of the single user versions are free BTW.

For small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal business, the only way to go is online – I’m sure you think I would say that – but consider this.

You will need to get information fast – to make an urgent decision – how is anyone going to give you advice without up-to-date numbers on your business. There are other benefits to consider, but this one to me is the most crucial. Remember most small businesses fail because of bad financial decisions being taken, often based on false or out of date data.

What if your accountant or bookkeeper wants you to use an offline accounting system – do your business a favor find a new accountant, fast. Accountants are sometimes slow to change, they are also very often very busy people, but you should not worry about that, you need to worry about your business.

I wrote in the past about many accountants wanting to live in the past – that they are not interested in helping you plan your future. Michael Gerber in his book “The E-Myth Revisited” calls these type of business people “technicians” – I agree most of them are and very few have an entrepreneurial outlook in live.

So remember – no planning or no online accounting/bookkeeping for your small business – leave NOW! You owe it to your business.

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Virtual Assistants provide valuable support to your business.

May 8, ’06 9:25 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Development, Employment, Entrepreneur, Freelancer, Infrastructure, Lifestyle, Office - IT, Outsourcing, Small Business / SOHO, Start-Up, Virtual Assistants, Web Technology, Work/Life Balance, avoid growing pain, be eco-friendly, bootstrap, choose your office, do a reality check, outsource effectively, plan your business, recruit the right people, start-up in business

A Virtual Assistant can provide valuable assistance anywhere@anytime, in certain areas of your business activities where you can’t devote your time and energy.

There are numerous problems faced by small business in expanding their products or services, the hiring, cost and training of extra staff is one of them.

Having the presence of a Virtual Assistant is of advantage to your business as you get support and other services online. The major benefit of being associated with a Virtual Assistant is that you get professional and quality jobs, without having to employ a full time professional. To you it means savings on your HR expenditure, this helps to keep overheads low.

A Virtual Assistant can assist you in the area of his/her specialization, such as market research, credit control, public relations, marketing, payment follow-ups, designing, secretarial services, telephone answering and more.

This all comes back to my belief that small business does need a services infrastructure delivered over the internet, so that they can concentrate on developing the business, and do not have all their time taken up by admin tasks.

Update (04/06): Kathie Thomas introduces Virtual Assistants.

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