Is your business likely to be quiet over Christmas? Here are our 5 top tips to make the most of your down time so that you organise your business for the New Year.
Organise your office: it may start with a general tidy up of your workspace, but organising your office should extend to a review of your administrative systems and processes as well. Are you using accounting software, such as Xero, to record your transactions, or are you still using receipt books and paper invoices? Do you find your reporting software easy to use, or do you find yourself making excuses not to sit down and do the admin for your business? If you don’t think bad bookkeeping habits make much difference to your business, you might want to read this.
Review your customer list: if you own a retail business, you may not have an extensive customer list as most transactions with be cash or card with little personal detail collected; but for the majority of trades and services, you should have a fairly comprehensive client list. If you haven’t transferred written quotes and invoices onto your computer – that should be your first priority. Next, work your way through it to see who has or hasn’t used your services recently. How you approach follow-up calls will depend to a large degree on the type of business you have, but you should be able to contact everyone on your list, even if it’s only to see if they are still happy with the work you did for them!
Train your team: Unless you work by yourself, there is a good chance that you will have had some staff turnover during the course of the past year. For most small businesses, new employees tend to be thrown in the deep end when they start, with little training other than the basics. Whether it is an organised training organisation, or simply taking the time while it’s quiet to go through your work processes with everyone on the team. Is there a staff member who regularly fails to fill out their paperwork? It might not seem like much, but it adds to the workload of others in the business, or results in vital information being lost! A bit of training will help to
Create a business plan: if your business doesn’t have a clear direction, how can you hope to set clear goals, either for yourself or your employees? A good business plan will help to clarify the things you already know, and most likely bring to light a few things you haven’t thought of! If you aren’t exactly sure what you need to do, here are our three key point to successfully create a business plan.
Take a break: finally – and very importantly – take a break! If the business is quiet, make the most of it and get out of the office and recharge your batteries for the year to come.
By Jennifer Lowe
The post What To Do With Your Business During The Christmas Break appeared first on Total Tax.