cash is not equal to profit

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Have you ever been in a meeting with your accountant, hearing how much profit you’ve made and being congratulated on a lift in performance, but in the back of your mind you’re wondering where the cash is and how you’re going to make payroll tomorrow? Don’t worry, you’re not alone! The problem is that cash […]

Cash is NOT equal to profit

forecasts

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For centuries, accounting was all about reviewing historic information – but that only told you about the past, not what was going to happen in the future. If you’re only looking back at past periods and historic numbers, this limits the insights you can achieve for your business. With a backward-looking ideology, it becomes difficult […]

How to use forecasts and scenario-planning

business reports

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Making time to look over your financial reports each month is an important task for any business owner. If you are not taking time to do this, either because you’re too busy, or perhaps you don’t really understand what you’re looking at and it doesn’t make sense to you, then here are 6 reasons we […]

6 Powerful Reasons To Watch Your Financial Reports

productivity

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Productivity is a term associated with strong economies, robust businesses and the efficiency gains of clever staff. If only businesses were efficient, then we would have fewer of them failing, more employment and better incomes for owners and workers alike. In New Zealand, according to Xero Small Business Insights Special Report, Kiwi business productivity fell […]

Why productivity matters and what you can do about it

Pricing

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How should I be pricing my product or service? We’ve all heard the stories about the person that worked in the retail store, misheard an instruction from the owner about pricing a clearance product, mistakenly priced it double and sold them all in a day. Pricing touches everything from your business finances to your product’s […]

Three questions for business success – Part 3: Pricing

Value Proposition

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What makes my product or service attractive – my Value Proposition? Borrowing from the world of advertising, Rosser Reeves of US agency Ted Bates was the first to coin the single minded proposition phrase in his book Reality In Advertising back in 1961. He concluded that unless an ad (or any communication) had a core […]

Three questions for business success – Part 2: Value Proposition

DIY Accounting

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When you’re starting out as a small business owner, the temptation is to go DIY with your accounting. Hiring a professional accountant or tax adviser costs money and that’s an overhead that you can remove by doing all the financial management yourself, right? But is DIY accounting the most sensible option for your business? And […]

DIY accounting vs hiring an accountant: make the right choice for your business

Budgeting

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When you’re operating and managing a small business, you have a finite pot of cash to work with. Because of this, it’s incredibly important to manage your cash well and to have clear budgets and spending limits for every area of your business operations. Let’s take a look at why budgeting is such a vital […]

Essential Budgeting: Keys to Financial Success

Pay

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Being the boss means you get to make all the big decisions about your business – including how much to pay yourself in wages, salary or drawings. As the owner, you might need to underpay yourself in the early stages of building your business, so you can reinvest the profits. But your time is valuable […]

How much should you pay yourself?

Selling Your Business

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Selling your business is a big move for any owner. You’ve built this company up, scaled it and put years of hard work into it. So when the time comes to sell, you’ll want to know that you’re getting the best price, and the best future for your legacy. We’ve outlined five ways to maximise […]

Selling your business? Lets get prepared