Business owners focus a great deal of energy on preparing for the end of the financial year but often don’t allow time to set themselves up for success from the start of a new one. Taking time to reflect and plan, putting good habits and automation in place early on, and shopping around for suppliers will help you improve business efficiency throughout the remainder of the financial year, and you will truly be thanking yourself next June.
Where can adjustments be made to spending?
Take a look at your offering – what makes the most money? Consider ways of further promoting those goods or services that have a higher turnover and markup. Conversely, consider reducing or removing what doesn’t make you money. For example, if you own a restaurant, think about removing the five least popular items from the menu. This forces customers to choose an item with a higher margin, while also reducing waste.
Whilst doing this, take the time to review all your business costs for the prior financial year. If you had a budget in place, reflect on your projections and how your spending compared. Business owners using Zeller can review the payments they have made to specific businesses or individuals in their Zeller Transaction Account, and make adjustments accordingly in real-time.
Setting goals and budgets, and sticking to them
Setting goals for FY23 is critical; consider it as a “fail to prepare, then prepare to fail” scenario. After reviewing your financials for the previous financial year, set targets for this year. Whether it’s training staff, investing in advertising, securing inventory or setting sales targets, these goals are crucial for your business’s roadmap to success.
It’s imperative to know how your financials are tracking, especially against your set goals. You want to ensure you’re hitting targets, and so too are your staff. Having a platform where you can track sales daily and manage staff performance is key to success. Our dashboard, for example, will help track sales on a day, month, and yearly basis, allowing you to compare previous figures, staff targets and view transactions in real-time, whilst also monitoring business performance by location.
Taking the time to make the required adjustments
Take a look at your recurring expenses. Are automatic payments coming out of your business account for services or products you no longer need? Cancel those you can, or consider how you can shop around or consolidate suppliers. Another recurring expense you could look at minimising is your EFTPOS merchant fees. Look for an EFTPOS provider who allows you toggle on and off the surcharging feature to pass on your transaction fees to your customers, if you decide this is right for your business.
According to the Reserve Bank of Australia, the average Australian could save at least $1000 by shopping around for their business loan. Apply this thinking to the savings you could unlock for your business. Review your significant recurring costs such utilities, insurance, and business loans.
Update your tech stack
There is no better time than now to take advantage of the best technology solutions available. Each year, more intuitive and advanced solutions are emerging. By sitting idle with an incumbent provider, you could be missing out on a modern EFTPOS solution that will give you real-time visibility of transactions as they happen, so if a customer’s card is declined your staff can rectify the situation so you don’t miss out on a sale.
