So it is that time of year when yes we might still be in a post-Christmas carb coma, but we also get excited about new goals and plans for the year ahead.
This year, in 2020 it is also a new decade and what better time to start planning your financial resolutions?
Getting to grips with your business finance goals in 2020
Firstly, before setting any big goals it’s about getting stuck in the nitty gritty granular detail and getting extremely clear on what it is you want to achieve.
1) Look at where you are right now
Often business owners aren’t necessarily tracking income and expenditure. When clients join us at Insight Finance Solutions, it is very common that business owners will have a guesstimate overview on business income, expenditure and profit. Unless year end reports are imminent, it is normal for a business owner to not have a clear picture on their financial performance until their accountant prepares their year end reports. (That’s EXACTLY why we do things differently at Insight Finance Solutions so you know where you are financially in your business month to month rather than year to year).
So understanding your past year in business is the first place to start. Auditing your last year and your business finances will allow you to create a true and clear picture before you start putting your energy into plans and strategies for the coming year.
Some great audit questions to ask yourself;
- How much did you earn in the last business year?
- How much profit did you make in the last business year?
- What were your investments and how did they help you grow the business?
- What was wasteful in your business? What could you change to save time or money?
- What were the financial successes of the last year?
- What is my greatest challenge with my business finances?
2) Set your goals and set them VERY clearly
It is too vague to say “I want to earn more money.” How much do you want to earn?
£10 more?
£1000 more?
£100,000 more?
Get specific on what you want to achieve! You can’t create a roadmap for financial success if you don’t know the destination you’re heading. Take your auditing questions from point 1 above into account. It isn’t just about creating more money, it might be a case of looking at your expenditure of both time and finances and see where you can make savings. For example, if you currently do your own accounts and bookkeeping, is your time better spent elsewhere? Would hiring an accountancy advisory service (ah-hem! *cough *cough – like us!) save you time, energy and stress? Where could you outsource the jobs and tasks in your business that aren’t your zone of genius?
3) Work out what you enjoy and what sets you alight
It is all very well to want to earn more money but if it involves doing things you hate or pushing too hard and compromising other areas of your life, is it worth it? Sometimes we can make sacrifices that add up to cost savings, or save time, that will ensure there’s more money in the pot at the end of the month. Or more importantly, there’s more hours left in the week for you to live your life.
One of our key values at Insight Finance Solutions is ‘courage’. Having the courage to assess what you love about your business and focusing on your passion (another of our values) rather than your profit often ends up in you growing your business naturally. In our work as money mindset coaches, we have worked with countless business owners who come to us juggling so many plates that they drop the ones that are so important for living; family, friends, socialising, or looking after their health. This point is about putting down all the plates gently. Don’t smash them! Just take a moment to put them all down and look at each one carefully before you decide to pick it back up again.
A good exercise for this, which is also good to do in a business team as part of a new year strategy focus is to list every single task that has to be done in your business;
- daily
- weekly
- fortnightly
- monthly
- yearly
Get creative and list them all out. Work out who is responsible for what task. Open up honest and transparent conversations where you allow your team to discuss openly these tasks. Do they enjoy them? Are they any good at them? Does someone else actually love something another person hates? Could you change things up and swap things around? Could you outsource some of the tasks to people who have more experience and expertise who can therefore get those tasks done quicker?
If you’re a sole trader you’re probably spinning so many of these plates yourself. When you’ve been doing it yourself for such a long time you do struggle to let go and delegate. Yet more headspace for growth exists on the other side of stressing to balance everything yourself.
4) Work out what is important for you at this point in your business and personal life
Every single person is different and comes with a different set of circumstances when it comes to setting financial goals. For example, on a personal note, last year was all about moving house and having the finances to take the next step on our property journey. Now we have done that and life is feeling more settled, this year is about focusing on growing the business. At Insight Finance Solutions we’ve been discussing saving valuable time and increasing our capacity for more clients by adopting new software and systems that will reduce admin time. The more time we can save on administrative tasks, the more time we have to give to share our expertise and coach our clients each month.
You might decide that this year is all about;
- paying off your credit card
- learning to invest
- setting up systems, structure and software to streamline your business processes
- being more proactive with your money management each month
- saving money
- hiring new team members
- outsourcing tasks you don’t enjoy that drain your time and energy
- cutting down your expenditure
Working with an accountancy advisor in 2020 to make your business finances stress free
This year, if your business focus is on any of the points we have mentioned above, we are here to help you. It doesn’t matter if you’re a sole trader traveling through Bali (we have some clients like this!), or you’re a bigger business looking for your own virtual finance manager – we can help.
At Insight Finance Solutions we believe in being courageous, passionate and having integrity in business. That’s why before we help any potential new client, we like to have an informal chat to see if we are the right fit for you and your business and you’re a right fit for us. We are not your traditional accountancy service and believe in using modern technology and systems to save time, money, energy and stress when it comes to your business finances. We are also unique in that we blend powerful personal mindset coaching with our services to support you through the often scary times of stepping up in your business.
If you’d like to arrange a chat about your business, or book a more in-depth business finance health check then get in touch and let’s talk soon. Together, we can help make 2020 your best year in business.