Planning your business is a key step for small and family businesses in Australia to grow and stay stable. It’s easy to miss this when you’re starting out or not growing much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But if you don’t plan well at any time in your business life, you might miss chances to do more than just get by \u2013 you could really do well. We’ve been helping Australian small businesses with their books for over 20 years. Our trained experts know how to turn financial problems into chances to do better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let’s look at some real steps you can take now to make your bookkeeping and accounting better, and help your small business grow in a good way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
… Time constraints.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n … Contradictory regulations across states and territories, and not enough staff yet to wrangle them.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n … Too few big banks offer too little capital, or that require more than you can put together in terms of paperwork (always, with the paperwork). The money stuff for small businesses in Australia and other places hasn’t changed a lot lately. Some problems might get bigger or smaller, but the main things they have to deal with stay the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you think about rules from the Australian government, your business goals, finding new customers, and big money ups and downs, you can see why handling money is often a tough problem for many small businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019re just trying to keep up half the time. Occasionally, you also need to rest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Getting ahead can seem impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (It\u2019s not, but we\u2019ll get to that).<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, a little more detail. Let\u2019s get a complete picture of what needs to be done and why it\u2019s sometimes hard to accomplish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot of small business owners start their businesses by themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They might keep working alone for a long time or grow their business slowly. No matter how their business gets bigger, with more costs or money coming in, they are usually good at the special thing their business does, not at keeping track of their money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This makes sense, but if they don’t keep their money records neat and complete, it can cause problems later, like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n That last one is something we all want to avoid. Beyond taking focus and energy away from the business, it can stunt growth or even endanger the solvency of your entire enterprise. Even at times when cash flow may be weak, or funding difficult to come by, or tax burdens heavy, a well-built and sufficiently maintained financial plan offers a springboard to progress in the form of much-needed clarity on the in-and-outs of your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Effective planning is key, especially when you\u2019re running your own business in Australia. It allows you to anticipate and mitigate financial risks, manage resources wisely, and make informed decisions that lead to business growth. Done correctly, it transforms financial management from a reactive task into a proactive strategy. Managing the finances of a small business isn\u2019t always easy. But especially in Australia, where we value our local economies even as we seek growth, taking steps to first maintain the financial health of our small businesses often becomes a prerequisite for efficient scaling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Boosting sales or increasing your customer base may be the quickest way to scale your business, but neither of these strategies alone (or together) necessarily assure sustained success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Growth can get tricky quickly, as it often requires investments in time and funding that need to be traced back to new returns on investment (ROI). Again, clarity becomes our goal to assure this, and business planning our method for achieving it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A growth-oriented financial plan might:<\/p>\n\n\n\n But how exactly do we go about constructing such a plan?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/em>These are just some of the business planning challenges small businesses in Australia may face. But examples like these are in actuality more of an end result. They\u2019re less an original problem and more like a culmination of some of the smaller everyday difficulties that small and family business owners need to grapple with.
Defining and understanding these \u201csmaller\u201d hurdles is the first step to safely leaping over them.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMoney Issues: Always Changing, and Always the Same <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Bookkeeping and Financial Management Aren\u2019t Why You Went Into Business<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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So what\u2019s the opposite of these conditions?<\/p>\n\n\n\nShift From A Reactive Approach to a Proactive One, With Effective Financial Planning<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
In practice, this might result in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Planning Your Finances to Grow Your Small Business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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What are the Financial Considerations when Scaling a Business?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n