How to Avoid Big Fines
At SP Solutions we continuously strive to provide the best possible service to all of our clients, especially keeping their business and financial records up to date and accurate. One of the ways we do this is by working directly with ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) to submit formal changes within their strict time criteria. As ASIC is strict on time frames, failing to follow proper procedures could be costly to your business. If you are up to one month late in notifying them of any changes, a $69 fine is incurred. If you are more than one month [Read More]
How to Get Your Pricing Right
No matter which business, which industry, or which stage of growth you’re in, pricing strategy is one of the most important parts of building and maintaining a successful business. Yet, across all business and all industries, the one thing we commonly find is that most businesses don’t have a clue how to plan their pricing. Often times, business owners price their products when they’re at their most disadvantageous position, such as when they aren’t making enough sales, or when they are so overwhelmed with business that they want to reduce them. With the former, you end up trying to undercut [Read More]
Exit Planning. How to Build a Valuable Business to Sell
Business owners are different sort of people. We spend our days solving problems and embracing opportunities that others would balk at. We do it not just for the money, but because we love what we do. If you’re like most business owners, you can’t foresee a day in which you’ll be ready to leave your business behind. Your business is your baby; it’s your life. But what happens when things change? Some business owners simply fall out of love, some get burned out, and some just can’t manage their business once it reaches scale. This is normal, and it happens [Read More]
When Does a Business Fail?
Each and every day, new businesses begin, and old businesses fall to the wayside. We’ve all heard stories of big companies filing bankruptcy, going out with a bang, as well as small companies disappearing in the middle of a night, with more of a whimper than a scream. How does this happen? Is it a lack of customer satisfaction? Is it failure to deliver on time? Is it bad products, marketing, or employees? Maybe it’s a combination of them all? Or…what if a business stopped working simply because it ran out of money? That’s the real signal, the amount of [Read More]
Tax Planning: it’s never to early to start
Tax Planning is Here to Stay Around this time of year, we at SP Solutions find ourselves reminding our current and prospective clients just how important it is to conduct tax planning. It is a necessity! It is crucial for a business owner/manager/director to be financially well organised. From our point of view: tax planning is invaluable Tax planning allows you to anticipate what your taxable income will be for the financial year therefore allowing you to determine your tax liability in advance. The knock on effect of having such information is that you have the ability to plan ahead [Read More]
How to Double Profit without Doubling Debt
One of the greatest daily struggles of a small business owner is having to walk the fine line between paying the bills and investing in future growth. Many times, business owners look at their sales charts and see profit going up, but they don’t see their cash flow situation getting any better. They are making more money, but still not having any more to spend! So how does that happen? Well, what we have is a problem not necessarily with overspending, but with cash flow management. In order to grow, a business needs to be able to spend more cash, [Read More]
Three Step Plan to Profit
The secret to being a great chef is building great recipes, and while a master chef can certainly do his or her best to make a bad recipe better, there’s no way around the fact that adding more ingredients to an already bad recipe does nothing but make more bad food. The same is true of business. If you have a profitable and well-oiled business, it’s easy to make it grow – you just keep doing more of what you’ve been doing to make it great. You double the recipe. But if you have a bad business, and you want [Read More]
3 Truths About Why Your Business Isn’t Successful
One of the most dangerous types of small business owner is the one that’s afraid to look in the mirror and tell his or herself the truth. They often think that if they just keep their head down and grind it out, they’ll make it to the other side rich and successful. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. The cold reality is that if you don’t learn to deal with the facts, then these ‘tough times’ you’re dealing with now might not ever end. In my experience, I have found that there are three common lies a business [Read More]
How to create a pricing strategy
‘To successfully price a product or a service for your target market, you have to know your numbers“. Its a given that setting your price is one of the hardest decisions that all consultants and business owners have to make. You have to ‘know your numbers’. You have to know your labour and material costs, your fixed and variable costs and your desired margin. Once you know your numbers you then need to take a deep breath and come up with a price and understand that most of the time, the price you come up with will be wrong. If [Read More]
Your numbers are screaming at you, are you listening?
Your numbers are trying to tell you something. When was the last time you had a good look at your numbers? Was it when you had a meeting with your Accountant last year, was it when you had to get your numbers ready to give to your bank, or when you sat down with your book keeper last month? Your financials are vital to get you bank finance, and they are vital to keep you out of trouble with the tax office. But the most important aspect of financial statements(Profit & Loss Statement and Balance Sheet) is to give you [Read More]
Have You Got 10 Years Experience or 1 Year Repeated 10 Times?
One of the things when we’re talking to small business owners about how long they have been in business and how much experience they have. A lot of them think that hey! I’ve been in business 10 years, I’ve got a lot of experience. I know what I’m doing… And in a lot of cases this is Not true! If you’ve got 10 years experience, is it 10 years experience or is it just one year repeated ten times. Why? Because when we start a business, we learn a professional skill, we start doing it for somebody else, we think [Read More]
How to Double Profit without Doubling Debt
One of the greatest daily struggles of a small business owner is having to walk the fine line between paying the bills and investing in future growth. Many times, business owners look at their sales charts and see profit going up, but they don’t see their cash flow situation getting any better. They are making more money, but still not having any more to spend! So how does that happen? Well, what we have is a problem not necessarily with overspending, but with cash flow management. In order to grow, a business needs to be able to spend more cash, [Read More]
