By Brenda A. Barnes bio
Year-end can be a pretty hectic time for many of us. As a business owner though, this is an ideal time to work on positioning your firm for a prosperous new year.
Here are four important tasks you can start on now to ensure a successful 2024:
1. Think about strategic planning. Evaluate your firm’s successes as well as areas that need improvement. Use this information to help establish goals for the upcoming year and modify policy and procedure as needed.
2. Update engagement letters and analyze rates. It’s a good practice to evaluate your rates and review engagement letters each year. It’s not enough to calculate how much you’d like to make per hour, it’s also important to determine if your rate is realistic. If your customers say you are a bargain and your competitors are raising prices, it could mean you need to look at your fee structure. Take a look at the market, and see where your firm fits in.
3. Develop a budget. A budget is important because it allows the business owner to assess the feasibility of their ideas and plans for the future. When you set a budget, it allows for an opportunity to assess whether your ideas are going be a success or a failure before it’s too late. Budgeting also provides an important view of where the firm is headed, and provides an opportunity to evaluate expenses for cost savings.
4. Analyze your cash flow. A good system of cash flow management can spell the difference between a successful business and a failed one. Obviously, you need positive future cash flow to meet your debt commitments. Strong cash flow management also provides the ability to invest in growth. Getting to a position of excess cash flow helps your company operate in a strategic, proactive way, and can help keep you from operating on the defensive. Year end is an excellent time to document your cash flow, prepare a cash flow budget, and look for areas of improvement.
