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We are all getting more e-mails than ever and we are constantly looking at how we can add more value to our regular bulletins so have slightly tweaked the format for this month.

We are splitting the content into shorter and more “punchy” sections so you can jump into those which are of greatest interest value to you and will save you time looking for the “golden nuggets.”

Save me tax

Did you know there are three different elements to the tax advice and support that we provide and for which greater attention can be paid?

Click on the image below to find out more.

Make me more money

We have mentioned this before on a previous newsletter; with reference to inflation, but have you thought about this:

“Money left sat in your bank account is COSTING you money.”

Given the current rate of inflation, I don’t believe there are any banks currently paying interest in current accounts that exceed the current rate of inflation so; with it left sat there, as each month passes it worth less than the day it was put in.

What should you do? Speak with an IFA. Don’t have one? Get in touch with us by clicking here and we will contact you.

Help me focus on what matters

We started this end of month newsletter saying how a deluge of e-mails and content is meaning that people are struggling to see the woods for the trees.

The amount of information at people’s finger tips often leads to what is commonly known as “analysis paralysis” so basically you don’t know where to start, so don’t start.

We have some great overview reports that we are sharing for no cost up until the end of March for those on our bookkeeping package so let us know if you would like yours.

If we don’t do your bookkeeping, get in touch regardless and we’ll send you a template report based on demo data and a bit like Bullseye show you would could have won; or could still get in the future …

Yes please I’ll have a business overview report click here

Improve my cash flow

One of the most common issues we find whereby businesses could improve their cash flow is by changing the way in which they quote.

Whilst it is quite easy to factor in those costs directly attributable to a sale, it is more difficult when it comes to those overheads you incur regardless i.e. insurance, rent etc.

Quick tip

Go through your overheads for the past year and work out what these equate to based on the number of working hours there is in a year for you i.e. the hourly costs of these same overheads.

Start then applying this hourly overhead rate; with a mark-up to future quotes and see what difference this makes.

This is rough and ready; and not perfect, but is better than nothing and it will provide a great platform to build from.

Make sure you start with this gradually to get your confidence in adding it and in the calculation itself or just a few clients. We are here to help where needed.

Takeaways (everybody loves one, Indian would be my choice)

  1. Look at tax from one of three angles to think of it more proactively.
  2. Don’t have spare money in the bank costing you money, have it make you money.
  3. Draw from your figures what matters the most and we have a great report to help so get in touch for what this could look like.
  4. When it comes to improving cash flow; start with looking at how you quote for work. Then, take this a step further and monitor your REAL profitability per job thereafter.
P.S. More information on our
client awards very soon …

Kick off the new year with a bang

Time to do something

We know that so many people were busy leading up to Christmas so many people might have missed what we first out prior to Christmas so we thought we would share again some key points for those sneaking in a bit of work time late December.

Yes I know we did say we wouldn’t send an end of month newsletter out but I sensed some might need this so scheduled this one in advance.

Operationally

Want to work less and achieve more in your business?

Head over here to take a read.

Financially

Improve your finances with our book recommendation again – ‘Profit First’ by Mike Michalowicz whereby he speaks about going back to basics.

We’ve summarised some of the key points if you want to take a look here.

Want to be a bit more proactive and hit 2022 with a bang?

Why not join those who have already committed and jump onto our workshops where we take the points above and convert them into actions to help you work less in your business and ultimately exit sooner and with more money.

I know what I’d be asking for off Santa but I am an accountant and a little bias.

I’d love to know more about the workshops

P.S. Don’t forget our office is closed from
24 December 2021 and we reopen on
Tuesday 4 January 2022

Merry Christmas

Time for reflection

Okay so neither this year nor this Christmas is perhaps going to turn out as we expected but that doesn’t stop us from taking time to reflect.

This month we thought we would merge our usual operational/financial newsletters we spread across the month and give you some things to think about going into a well-earned festive break all together given that a lot of people will be wrapping up soon for the Christmas.

Operationally

So it might feel like groundhog day with all of the recent announcements but operationally we must keep pushing to be stronger and more resilient and we have a fantastic blog on our website around the four pillars any successful business should have in place.

Head over here to take a read.

Financially

If any of you are after some reading over the Christmas, we fully recommend ‘Profit First’ by Mike Michalowicz whereby he speaks about going back to basics.

Whilst further lockdowns might be on the horizons; and the likelihood of further Government support remains uncertain, it does not stop an individual or business owner going back to basics to reduce wastage when it comes to finance and strengthen their overall cash flow position.

We’ve summarised some of the key points if you want to take a look here.

Want to be a bit more proactive and hit 2022 with a bang?

Why not join those who have already committed and jump onto our workshops where we take the points above and convert them into actions to help you work less in your business and ultimately exit sooner and with more money.

I know what I’d be asking for off Santa but I am an accountant and a little bias.

I’d love to know more about the workshops

P.S. The Client Awards will be back next year also …

Profit

Profit First

I have an apology on behalf of all accountants – we have been getting it wrong for far too long and we are all sorry; profit first is the way forward.

This is WRONG:

Sales – Expenses = Profit

This is RIGHT:

Sales – Profit = Expenses

Business owners often leave themselves last. We take home whatever money is left over after all other expenditure; we are often first into work and last to leave, and as a result we are the one’s that think about our work life balance last.

Not anymore, as we share some core principles to help you turn this all around by putting yourself and profit first!

Four Core Principles

The four core principles to getting right what you previously got wrong in your business are:

  1. Use smaller plates
  2. Serve sequentially
  3. Remove temptation
  4. Enforce a rhythm

Using smaller plates

As human beings we have a habit of being able to justify more of something quite easily.

How is it that we can fill a 4-bedroom house having moved from a two-bedroom small flat? (or it that just me?)

Why do we need a large SUV when the average car journey is just 8.4 miles?

More importantly, when we try to cut down on something, it is often difficult to sustain it.

For example, it is really easy to say “I am going to start eating less” and it can be easy initially but tough to sustain.

From a financial perspective, it might be easy to make savings initially but how long can you keep it going?

The same can even apply to time.

However, we can often be resourceful when we want to be.

So consider this:

“If you want to eat less, use a smaller plate”

How long do we all make that last bit of toothpaste last when we come to the end of tube?

Apply this thinking to business:

  • Reduce your budget in areas of expenditure and measure both how much you can save and what impact this has elsewhere
  • Reduce your working hours and keep track of whether you can actually get more done in less time – if you do then stick with it

Serve sequentially

I don’t know about you, but I love a good Sunday dinner and I can promise you that two things I never leave are the roast potatoes and the Yorkshire pudding.  I can also pretty much guarantee that if I leave anything it would be the vegetables. Until, of course, I became a parent and realized I must set a better example!

For those who have kids, you will have heard them claim to be full and as a result are unable to eat certain things on their plate. More often than not, it is the vegetables. Particularly sprouts!

Consider this:

“Eat the contents of your plate in a different order and see what (and how much) is left when they are full.”

If we consider this from a business perspective and go back to the formula we shared at the start:

Sales – profit = expenses

From sales revenue that we receive in, we first take out a calculated amount of profit and then start to manage expenses. When you take this profit first approach, it is interesting to see how much more effective we are at managing expenses within a finite budget.

Remove temptation

As humans we are drawn to things we know we shouldn’t have. It is human nature.

If something “bad” is visible or easy to reach, we are far more likely to succumb to it.  I always tell my wife to not buy crisps or sweets because then I know I won’t touch them.

The same goes with time. I have been notoriously guilty in the past working beyond 5pm simply because I can. I “allow” tasks to take longer, and I “allow” myself to start more work than is actually necessary.

You can spend more on “running expenses” and work those extra hours but it will mean you have less money to take home to spend on the family. And because of those extra hours worked, you miss another bed-time and meal time with the kids.

Try focusing on the following:

  • Go through all your expenditure and entirely cut out anything that you don’t need!
  • Track how you spend your time in an average week and identify things you either don’t need to do or could spend less time on. Aim to find 5 hours in total.  Follow my “D” rules when assessing time:
    • Ditch the task
    • Delegate it to somebody else
    • Do it if it really needs to be done by a certain time
    • Dither – please don’t – you’ve cost yourself enough time and money already!

Enforce a rhythm

Feel the rhythm, feel the ride, get on up, its bobsled time!

*That will be the only reference I make to the film Cool Runnings.

It is all good and well having a routine/rhythm but what if somebody trips you up in the 100m sprint and you miss the Olympics because you didn’t take aversive action? (**definitely the last reference to Cool Runnings!).

Feel the rhythm

To truly make sustainable changes in your business you must put in place a sustainable rhythm that can withstand several bumps along the way.

Once you get things right, you need to recognize them and repeat them more often.  When you get things wrong, don’t dwell on it but instead reflect and learn from it but don’t repeat them.

Now you’ve got the four core principles to putting profit first:

  1. Use smaller plates
  2. Serve sequentially
  3. Remove temptation
  4. Enforce a rhythm

We would love to hear what changes you implement based on the ideas in this post and the difference it has made in your business and personal lives.

Marginal gain %

Marginal Gains (Part 1 of 2)

1% can be all that it takes! (Part 1 of 2)

When Sir David Brailsford took over the British Cycling team in 2002 as performance director, we had only won 1 gold medal in our 67-year history.  Add to that, in 110 years, no British cyclist had ever won the Tour de France and top bike manufacturers refused to sell bikes to the team for fear that it would damage the company’s reputation!

All of that changed from 2004 onwards when the British Cycling team won two golds at the Athens Olympics followed by 7 out of 10 gold medals at both the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and London in 2012.

British Cycling riders then went on to dominate the Tour de France, winning six of the following seven Tour De France.

Improve component parts

This extraordinary success has been well documented but how did they achieve it?

Sir David Brailsford was credited with introducing one the most talked about ingredient of this success – the philosophy of ‘marginal gains’. By breaking down everything that went into competitive cycling and finding ways to make small, 1% marginal gains to every component part, an aggregated increase in overall performance was achieved.

Marginal business gains

What worked for the British Olympic Cycling team can also work for you and your business.  Not by breaking down everything that goes into competitive cycling, but by breaking down everything that goes into running a successful business and finding ways to make small, 1% marginal gains that lend towards success.

We have been practicing this philosophy in business ourselves for several years and we bring the approach to life in the different elements of our ‘Insight’ client support package.  Brailsford used data to analyse and redesign the bike seats to make them more comfortable, whilst discovering that rubbing alcohol onto the tires would give a better grip. He re-imagined the secondary impact that small actions could have.

Reimagine your business insights

Now imagine you started looking at your numbers slightly different and made some minor changes to the way you think about them i.e., rather than looking at staff as an expense, consider them a knowledge base upon which you can quickly establish flaws in processes that with improvement, could improve profitability.

We applied this scenario to our own business by internally drilling down to profitability per transaction for work completed. But we didn’t stop there, because we went on to look at the staff member doing the job, the industry in which the client was based, the nature in which the work was received and time of the month it was received i.e., was it always at the end of month?

There were so many areas ripe for subtle changes right at our fingertips that might be otherwise be ignored because of their minimal isolated benefit. But by combining multiple improvements together, the impact began to feel more monumental.

Facing realities

We had to really challenge ourselves as well and face some brutal realities. For example, by tracking phone calls we were able to identify and develop significant improvements to the way clients were handled. By enabling the team to answer queries at the first point of call, we gained both time and cost efficiency as well as alleviating the frustration of being passed around for the client – just being honest! We also started adding more answers to the most commonly asked questions on our website to reduce phone call volume and move towards the ambition of delivering a hybrid 24/7 service for clients for time when the office is closed.

Where are your 1% improvements?

What information do you already have at your fingertips which; with some assistance, you could turn into 1% improvements in your business? Sometimes you just need a fresh approach or new set of eyes to help build out and identify the key metrics and drivers within your business that are most likely to identify change that will help drive your business forward.

Getting profit the right way round

On behalf of the whole accounting profession, we are so sorry we got this the wrong way round!

Income – profits = expenses

Watch video: Getting your profits out first and your expenses last

Okay so you you might be thinking us a little bit mad here but hear us out as we explain this within our very first operational newsletter.

We as human beings surprise ourselves in terms of operating within our means.

Think about this – have you noticed how much we get out of the end of a toothpaste tube compared with when it is full – “just one brush then I’ll open the new one.”

Let us also think about some simple tricks to be more healthy:

  1. Want to eat less – try using a smaller plate
  2. Want to eat more healthily – start with the vegetables on your Sunday dinner rather than the meat and Yorkshire pudding
  3. Want to maintain this – get into a routine and get rid of temptation i.e. buy less alcohol, crisps and chocolate

Okay so we might give a little leeway on the last one.

By looking at the facts and figures in a different way can make a massive change to your business and we ask this of you from a business perspective:

“Do you know your top 10 customers based on activity?”

“Do you think additional sales is the quickest and biggest way to grow your business?”

If you start digging a little deeper with the second point; you might actually find you grow your sales by additional marketing but actually suffer on the bottom line as this group of customers is of a lower margin or even loss-making!

So how else are we going to help?

As we’ve mentioned in the video above we are going to subtly start asking of you; and in turn have you ask yourself, different questions to those you might have historically expected your accountant to ask.

We are embedding this into our processes, have been building out a “flagging system” within certain packages and will start talking more at a business level rather than just a financial level so that you the business owner are not left with the “scraps” as profits but instead start working up the food chain in your own business.

The data beneath the video is available for all clients who currently use Xero so if you want to have a discussion around your data then if you can just click here and answer a handful of questions then we will be in touch.

Want to know what potential is yet to be realised in your business? Mention that through the link above and we’ll even share a report on that for you.

Claire Goodliff - Director of Multiple Companies

"Graeme was amazing yesterday! These guys are the best money I spend ever and it’s over and beyond anything I’ve ever known. They literally are part of my business!"

Claire Goodliff – Director of Multiple Companies
 

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