As we approach the half-way point of the financial year, it’s a good time to review how your business has been performing for the year to date, make adjustments to increase revenue or decrease expenses and take advantage of new opportunities.

Key Takeaways:

• Be organised
• Review and set financial goals
• Analyse your budget and make adjustments where necessary
• Evaluate your monthly payments
• Make a debt reduction strategy

Here are our suggestions for your mid-year review:

1. Evaluate your Monthly Payments

Do you need all the services and products you are currently paying for?

For those you need, consider how you could get more value from them. Trim back where possible so you can run a lean business.

2. Get Organised

Your books show a snapshot of how your business is performing. If your books are incomplete, then this snapshot will be inaccurate and misleading.

Getting everything in order half-way through the year will not only make tax preparation at year end twice as easy but will also help you prepare financially for the next six months.

Having complete and accurate records at year-end will save time and keep your annual accounting fee to a minimum. From experience, messy and incomplete records usually mean that more billable time is spent on a job. Avoid the dreaded process of gathering 12 months of information in one go after year end and make a start now.

3. Review Six-Monthly Financial Reports

Look at how your business has performed and compare against your goals and KPI’s.

By reviewing your profit and loss statement and balance sheet in your accounting system, you will be able to identify whether your bookkeeping records are in good order or identify issues and make adjustments.

If you want more frequent reporting, we can prepare management accounts for your business on a quarterly, six-monthly or ad hoc basis – whichever suits your business. Regular reporting can highlight areas you need to focus on, help track spending, and lead to improved profits.

4. Budget Analysis

How does your budget compare to your actual results to date? Take the time to go back through your budget line by line. Does it all still make sense? Determine which budget categories need to be increased and which should be decreased.

If you don’t have a budget, get in touch with us and we can either steer you in the right direction or complete a budget for you.

5. Evaluate Revenue & Sales Goals

Are you on target to meet your revenue and sales goals for the year?

If you are on target, how can you do more of this? What’s working and what can be repeated? What potential problems do you see?

If you aren’t on target, now’s the time to create smarter sales goals for the second half of the year. What hasn’t been working? What improvements can you make? Do you need to change your strategy?

6. Debt Analysis

Are you making progress eliminating your debt?

Create and follow a debt reduction strategy. Plan out how you will tackle and pay off your debt.

7. Tax Preparation

It’s not too early to start talking taxes! Assess your tax liabilities to ensure you are paying what you need to and are meeting provisional tax obligations.

If your business is performing better than expected, are you tax planning and putting some money aside for your end of year tax bill?

8. Consider Moving to the Cloud

If you are using a manual system, consider moving to a system like Xero. This could save you time, automate some of your bookkeeping procedures and show you a real-time snapshot of how your business is performing.

We are Xero certified advisors that can offer your business a full Xero implementation and consultancy service. Our experience with Xero means we can easily set up your Xero account and provide you with the training and ongoing support you need.

DISCLAIMER: Our blog posts are of general nature and are intended to provide basic guidance. They are not intended to constitute accounting, tax, or other professional advice.