Category plan cash-flow

Entries 34 Total

Q & A: What questions should I ask my accountant before I start my business?

Nov 1, ’07 9:29 AM

Choosing an accountant/CPA is probably one of the most important decisions to get right, because you are unlikely to have an accountant's grasp of taxationcompany lawdealing with the tax authoritieswide range of knowledge about small business.You need to make sure you find an accountant/CPA who concentrates on small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants before you make any appointments.Another aspect is size, make sure you are not "one among millions" sort of speak, smaller accountants practices are often more in tune with your small business needs, because they are a small business too.Here are some questions I would be asking when starting out with a new business venture: Should I start my business as a sole-trader, partnership or limited liability company?Can you help me to find and raise finance? (Read about bootstrapping first!)Will you help me with setting up my cash-flow forecast?When do I need to register for VAT (UK), GST (Australia) or when do I need to charge sales tax (US)?Am I ready to start trading, or should I wait?Do I need to choose my financial year and trading year end date?Are you going to do my bookkeeping and accounting work?Will you work online with me, so we both can be up-to-date with my business progress?Will you deal with my employment issues, pensions, annuities and insurances for me?Will you help me to understand more and more of these issues myself, and will you be available for advice if and when I need it?There are many more issues to consider and they depend on your business, that is where your accountant will help you too.

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Q & A: What does “Fixed Costs” mean and why should they be as low as possible in a Small Business?

Oct 25, ’07 8:11 AM

Examples are rent, some employee costs, property taxes, telephone, heating and interest/bank expense.As opposed to "Variable Costs", they only occur in proportion to activity within the business and hopefully that will lead to sales and revenue.Why should I keep my "Fixed Costs" as low as possible?So when I talk about outsourcing, I'm talking about changing fixed cost into variable cost.... And depending how often you are in or out of your office, the 50 inclusive calls are probably enough to cover your needs.Should that not be the case, then you have "variable costs" of $1 per call, which means you are out of the office, working or enjoying life while it is quiet, for example during holiday season.

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Q & A: Is Higher or Lower Cash-Flow Better For My Micro Business

Oct 23, ’07 9:05 AM

So I reconsidered and decided to write about it here.As I said, generally speaking, a higher cash-flow is desirable because you have more "scope" to develop cash-flow reserves for your small business, by using standard cash-flow planning tools, like renegotiating payment terms with your suppliers and deal with credit control better.Here is the thing, if you are a micro business, or even a one man/woman home business, more or less cash-flow may not be as important to you as concentrating on credit-control. Let me explain, if you are a service business, you may just want to make enough money for your monthly income, there are limits to the amount of work you can do, before you start running into other problem areas, like employment issues, office rent, etc. You may no want that, you may be very happy the way things are - and contra to popular belief that is perfectly OK.

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Q & A: What are successful cost-cutting solutions in small business?

Oct 18, ’07 11:49 AM

Let me give you some pointers here, but please remember you can always do more on the cost-cutting front in any small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants.... Or have it done on a results basis, doesn't cost you time and gets you money back.Do credit control - get your money in lower your bank overdraft cost and charges.This is only a short list of what you can do, but it's a start.

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Q & A: Borrow Money To Grow Your Small Business Or Not?

Oct 15, ’07 7:15 PM

The answer to this question is not always easy, since for a manufacturing business it may be necessary for you to borrow, if that is the case you need to see an accountant you can trust, to help you to get the best deal and talk about the implications, like personal guarantees, liabilities and so on.If however, you are in the service sector you should try and stay away from borrowing money as long as you can and bootstrap.... Don't trust praise, most people don't want to hurt your feelings.Do some business planning, and see when your business would break even, get the tools free, so no excuses.Outsource all non-core business processes from day one, don't hire someone just to answer your phone, find Virtual Assistants to do that and other admin stuff, they know how to do it and that makes you look good.Have a look at some of my categories, like bootstrap, How to grow your business, and others to get some more ideas.

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Bookkeeping for Small Business

Oct 12, ’07 6:33 AM

More important than that, you will learn new things about your business: You may have higher (good) or lower (bad) sales, than you expected?Your cost in your business may be higher (bad) or lower (better) than you expected?Your cash-flow may be better or worse do to the above two points?You may need to outsource some business processes to lower your fixed cost structure, to make your business more recession proof or just more profitable?You may need to ramp up your sales and marketing activities for your small business products or services?You may also have to adjust your SWOT analysis and your business goals?You will be surprised how creative you can be, once you know about and understand a problem in your business plan.... There is no excuse not to do it, all the tools are available for free, for anyone.If you feel the initial process of business planning is too much for you, than get your accountant or bookkeeper to help you to set your cash-flow fore-casting, SWOT analysis with you, doing it online will give you strategic advantages, like you can work with your accountant or bookkeeper in real time in different places, this lowers your cost, no time wasted and is good for the environment.I would like to make one more point here, the aim of all this planning is not to get it spot on - no, the aim is to understand what is happening in your business, that is why you should be doing it.

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Managing A Small Business In A Recession

Oct 10, ’07 6:01 PM

The government set out it's plans to get small business owners to pay more tax, they increased capital gains tax by 90%.... Keep your fixed cost down, make sure you have reserves, keep up with your credit control, here I had to help him with most answers.I've been talking about "bootstrapping" or "cost-cutting" for a long while now, with business planning as an additional tool, to combat any surprises.

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Planning Your Small Business And Start-up

Oct 2, ’07 1:09 PM

For me small business planning centers around some very basic questions and I always aim to answer those first: How much is my business going to cost to set-up?What are the monthly running costs of my start-up?Is anyone willing to buy what I have to sell?What other problems or challenges does my business face?What are my best selling points or strength?You may thing that these are all very basic questions and you would be right - but can you really answer them for your small business?... Even if you have no staff to begin with, it will help you to make the right decisions and stay focused.Strength and Weaknesses are "internal" factors where you need to be honest with yourself and write down what you do well and what you do badly - writing it down is almost therapeutic - enabling you base future decisions on these facts, building on your strength, while avoiding your weak spots.Opportunities and Threats are all about "external" factors and deal with issues like your unique differentiators for your products and services in the market place, as well as your competitors, red-tape, funding issues, etc. Again just writing them down will move you forward.Last but not least I find it helpful to have a "Mission Statement" for my business, what do I want to achieve, so my customers, partners and others understand what my business is all about.The "Goals Statement" is more personal, I write down why I run my small business or why I want to start a business.

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Small Business Failure – Reason: Funding

Aug 30, ’07 8:17 AM

if you are don't start a business, because you are not ready and whatever you do do not borrow any money from anyone.If you read this and think this is all b*** s*** - and you may be right, of course - let me know why you think you need to borrow money? Maybe we could come up with an idea that would allow you start your small business, without having to borrow money and loosing some of the control in your small business.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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SaaS Benefits for Business Start-Up and Small Business

Aug 28, ’07 3:17 PM

ClimateByte™ TechnologyOur environment is in trouble - by using our on-demand Small Business Infrastructure™, you can help to reduce your carbon footprint and help our environment - we are dedicated to develop our future products and services with this in mind.Our Software as a Service products provide your small business with a on-demand Small Business Infrastructure™ helping you to concentrate on your business, while we run your office and IT. This makes your business more mobile and competitive while saving you time, money and helping the environment.When you run a small business and personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants you probably benefit even more from using SaaS technology - program your business for success.

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