Record your days’ work …… everyday.
- Reconcile your business bank account ………… daily
Cash is king! We have all heard the expression but how many of us ensure we focus on our cash position. I have worked in small businesses through to large well-known public company’s – I always made it a priority to know what the cash position was every morning.
This means processing all bank transactions so there are no unreconciled items in your bank account. As soon as this task is completed you will know who owes you money, and who you owe money to.
- Invoice your customers ………. Daily
When you complete a job for your customer take 10 minutes out and do the invoicing. The details are fresh in your mind and it also gives you a chance to de-clutter your mind before moving on to the next job.
More importantly you are not going to get paid until the customer has received the invoice!
- Record your Supplier invoices as they are received
As you receive bills for payment record them. For many of my clients I have recommended that they do not have credit terms with suppliers but use a credit card instead. This gets rid of the need to reconcile supplier statements and by treating the credit card as a bank account much improved clarity on your current position.
If you feel that you don’t have the time to do this then you need to either engage somebody to do it for you, like a bookkeeper, or systemise your processes or both.
By keeping score, you can spot trends in your data – both good and bad. This allows means you can question what is happening and keep doing the things that are working and tweak or change anything else.
