Six questions business owners need to ask themselves every month
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If you want a financially successful business, there are six questions you need to ask yourself every month:
Q1: What were your sales for last month?
Q2: What was your expenditure for last month?
Q3: What’s the difference between last month’s sales and expenditure?
Q4: Did you made a profit (if your sales exceeded your expenditure) or a loss (if your expenditure was more than your sales)?
Q5: Is there room for any financial improvement?
Q6: If your answer to Question 5 is ‘yes,’ what are those improvements and when could you implement them?
Each month, compare your answers with the previous month’s. Taking time to reflect back on previous months will give you clarity on your financial situation. It may be better or worse than you think, but you won’t be guessing!
More importantly, with the facts in front of you, you’ll be in a position to make corrections today (or tomorrow, perhaps😉) rather than waiting until the end of the year as many businesses do.
Top tips
1️⃣ To do the above, you may have to reconcile your bank statements. The detail involved in this task varies depending on the type of bank account (business or personal) and whether you are using cloud accounting software. Basically, though, you want to ensure you know all the ins and outs on your bank statement(s).
2️⃣ Think about adding some of your own questions that relate to your individual financial goals.
🤔 As a bonus, add all the previous months together and reflect on your current financial position for the year to date.
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By Helen Monaghan
Author of Successful Business Minds, The Magical Mix of Money & Tax, and 12 Steps to Improve Your Cashflow.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Helen Monaghan is a Chartered Management Accountant, accredited NLP Practitioner & Finance Coach. Both a psychology graduate and an accountancy graduate, she has authored three business books, which beautifully bring together psychology, finance, and tax to empower the reader about money. Helen is the CEO of HM Finance Coaching & Advisory Ltd, a company that provides financial education and business mindset coaching to small businesses across the UK, in addition to accountancy services for limited companies in Scotland and across the UK. Helen is also the founder of The Financial Resilience Hub – find out how we can support you, and your business, to be financially resilient through our monthly membership.
© Helen Monaghan
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