Mistakes help us learn and improve our businesses. While it is impossible for us to never make a mistake, you can limit the errors made by learning from others. Accounting mistakes from large businesses are often highly publicised and so much can be learnt from their experiences. So what are the three biggest accounting mistakes […]
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53. To Invest Or Not To Invest? How To Answer That Question
When you are making an investment, you need to know that you are going to make a return on the cash and time spent. If you don’t, you could end up making a loss which can have negative consequences on your business and on growth you intend to achieve. The wrong investment, as seen by […]
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52. 5 Questions You Simply Must Ask When Hiring A CFO
When you are looking to tighten the financial aspects of your business it is always best to look for a quality Chief Financial Officer, or “CFO”. A person in this position must have particular qualities and you should have a certain vibe when you meet them. Otherwise you will find that the working relationship is […]
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51. To Employ or Contract Out?
Recruiting and maintaining staff can be one of the most expensive costs for your business. It isn’t just the wages that you need to consider when hiring staff. Making the wrong hiring decision can be disastrous. Therefore, it is important that you consider the hidden or forgotten costs of employing new staff. It is especially […]
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50. 4 Steps to Minimise the Impact on your Business of Slow Payers
While the UK government is still consulting with experts on how late payment penalties should be enforced, there is a real danger that small and medium enterprises (or “SMEs”) could face financial trouble from slow payers and bad debtors. Research has found that UK SME businesses are owed £30.2bn and 85% of companies experienced significant […]
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49. Interest rates will rise but when?
In the summer of 2013, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, stated that the Monetary Policy Committee would not consider increasing interest rates until unemployment was at 7%. At the time unemployment was at 7.8% and it was projected to take a couple of years to get down to the 7% target. […]
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48. Watch out for those start-up bear traps
I can safely say that a couple of my clients think I’m a pretty good guy; and for an accountant, that can be a slightly unusual place to be! The reason is embarrassingly simple. They are both CEOs of young businesses that have been going full steam for a year or so with the business […]
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47. How do you collect cash owed to you?
A sale is not a sale until you have received the cash. Agreed? “Cash is King”. Not Shakespeare, I grant you, but probably quoted just as often. Profitability is one thing but it is a lack of cash in the bank that is the most common form of business failure – even for some highly […]
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46. How do you value a business?
“If you are thinking of buying or selling a business … here is a combined personal and professional perspective!” So – how do you value a business? Any accountant who has sat professional exams will remember this as a study topic loved by examiners probably due to the rich source of complex calculations on some […]
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45. The qualities of an outstanding FD
“What does an outstanding FD look like and do you need one?” All too often Finance Directors (FD or CFO), particularly in SME businesses, act more like “heavy” bookkeepers or management accountants rather than being a true member of the senior management team providing input to strategy and driving the business plan through in partnership […]
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