Monthly Archives: March 2019

Become more savvy with your finances

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As business owners we need our businesses to make money.

In my opinion an established business which does not pay its owner(s) a decent wage is really a hobby. So given that we need our businesses to make money it follows that we need to be sufficiently au fe with business finances to understand if our business is running our finances, or whether we our running our business finances.

Unfortunately, a large numbers of business owners are not financially savvy enough.

If you would like to see if you are one of these, try answering the questions below:

  1. Do you have a clear financial plan?
  2. Do you know if your business is currently profitable?
  3. At this point do you know how much money is in your bank and what money you can expect in and out of your bank account over the next month?
  4. Do you know what customers/products/services are profitable?
  5. Do you have a robust invoicing and debt collection system so clients pay you in a reasonable time (do you know what reasonable is?)?
  6. Are  you always able to pay your suppliers on time?
  7. Can you always pay your salary/dividend/drawings?
  8. Do you know how much you have to sell, and at what price, to provide the lifestyle you want?

If the answer to two or more of these questions is “no” you are probably not as financially savvy as you need to be to run your business effectively.

However, help is at hand and there are ways you can help yourself.

  • If you have an accountant/bookkeeper ask them questions about your financial position and what you could do to improve it
  • Talk to your business friends who seem to be financially sorted and ask them what they do
  • There are volumes of business books out there that can help you understand the basics
  • Take time to properly plan
  • You may want to go on a finance for non-financial managers course to learn the basics in a workshop setting.

Finally, I have written a series of FREE financial and business guides which you can download from my website http://www.fionabevanfinancialmanagement.co.uk/guides.php

You can download as many or as few of the guides as you like without registering so please do take advantage of them.

Fiona 🙂

What can we do?

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As I was out walking this morning reflecting on what a lovely day it was (hence the piccie below) I got to thinking about what an exceptional world we live in – and how much we take it for granted.

I was reminded of the words of the TV advertisement from the WWF. We are the first generation who understands the destructive effect we are having on our planet – and the last who may be able to do anything to stop it!

That is quite a profound statement, and one that makes most of us feel powerless. When big businesses fail to change the way they are acting, what can small businesses do to affect anything?

Well, I guess, we can do our bit.

There are millions of small businesses and together we have a voice. By changing the way we run our businesses we can do our bit to influence opinion – and benefit from reduced costs and increased profits.

Some small businesses I know have started to offset the carbon emissions they are responsible for, so that any negative impacts their businesses may have on the environment are offset by positive ones. In doing so, they have attracted customers who are also mindful of their environmental impact.

Others have moved away from travelling long distances to meetings – which others have also travelled to get to – and moved to online meeting tools such as Zoom. Travel costs are saved, as well as a good chunk of time. 

Where travel is unavoidable some business owners are moving towards public transport – which can often be cheaper and more convenient than using the car – or walking or cycling.

In the office, many small businesses are looking at having online document management systems so that printing is kept to a minimum. This saves paper, ink and time – not to mention office space.

In changing our habits we will also start to influence larger businesses because they will want to sell us the services we use –  and will start to see reductions in sales of those we don’t.

I am in the process of doing an environmental audit of my business to try to minimise the negative impact Bevan Financial Management has on the environment – perhaps you would like to do the same for your business? 

Worst case? We just save some money! Best Case? We save our world!

Fiona