Following our guide to
starting and growing your business, we’ve teamed up with Bankwest,
Smart Investor’s
Business Bank of the Year, to explore some further tips, tools and
ideas to help keep your business in great shape once it’s up and
running.
1. Manage Your Cash Flow
Cash flow is the pulse of your business, so of course you’ll be
monitoring it closely and actively looking for ways to improve it.
•
This cash flow forecaster
will help identify running costs and how much money you’ll need to stay
in business all year. Factor in seasonality, look for weaknesses in
cash flow and pay invoices on time.
• Boost your cash flow by reviewing your business’ key cash flow
measures like your marginal cash flow (i.e. cash flow from each
additional dollar of sales) and cash flow cycle (i.e. time to receive
cash from sales). To calculate these for your business and determine
what you can do to improve these, try Bankwest’s
cash flow improvement calculator.
2. Analyse How Your Business Is Performing
Build yourself a business dashboard. Strategic operation requires
quick and up-to-date access to vital business stats like sales, profits,
cash flow and more. You may be able to get by with the built-in tools
in your CRM or ERP platform or even an Excel spreadsheet. You could also
tailor a dashboard to your specific needs using advanced tools like
NetSuite.
• Make sure you know your break even point. This
handy break even calculator will help you determine the level of business activity required to achieve your desired financial return.
3. Keep On Top Of Tax
Good record keeping is important in every business — as is knowing
the tax you need to pay for your employees and understanding what
deductions or concessions you may be able to claim.
• Step 1:
Register your business
and set up good accounting habits. Bankwest provides free daily bank
feeds for customers with eligible accounts, so it’s easy to
automatically reconcile business transactions with online accounting
services like Xero and MYOB.
• Step 2: Consult a tax professional, who can help you determine
what hard copy and electronic business records you’ll need to keep on
file and for how long (generally five years).
• Step 3: Be sure to ask your accountant – and the ATO — about
potential tax deductions (for related expenses incurred running your
business) and tax concessions. Eligibility for concessions could apply
to your income tax, capital gains tax, GST and fringe benefits. Visit ‘
How To Keep On Top Of Tax‘ at Bankwest for more helpful info.
4. Manage Your Risk
Put a risk management plan in place and you’ll spend less time
worrying about your business and more time building it. Make sure you
have adequate insurance for the tools and equipment you need to stay up
and running. Have a business continuity plan. Diversify and widen your
customer base. Monitor your reputation. Bankwest has a
detailed run-through of each of these points.
• And here’s a great
red tape checklist for legislation, regulations, standards and codes of practice for businesses.
5. Promote Your Business
Marketing your business can be quite creatively rewarding. You might
use physical signs and banners to email newsletters or Facebook — and
everything in between.
Invest time to really get to know and understand your customers and
how you can give them more of what they want. Supporting your community
and fostering word of mouth should never be underrated, but neither
should direct marketing methods like emails and texts (subject to
meeting all privacy obligations) — especially if you’re providing
exclusive offers. Consider loyalty programs. And never forget the
up-sell.
• How will you get your business noticed?
This
marketing plan template and tips will help you brainstorm some ideas.
Want more tips? Head on over to
Bankwest’s dedicated Small Business website
for more useful business info, tips, tools and templates.
About Bankwest
Bankwest provides personal and business banking solutions for more
than 1.3 million retail and business customers across Australia.
Bankwest customers enjoy access to an extensive network of stores and
business centres, direct and third party distribution channels, agencies
and electronic banking facilities, as well as 24-hour telephone and
internet banking. In 2013 & 2014 Bankwest was named Business Bank of
the Year in the
AFR Smart Investor Blue Ribbon Awards. Bankwest is a division of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
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