Spreadsheets are deceptively easy to use and incredibly hard to manage. For businesses globally, spreadsheet errors have resulted in loss of cash, profits and customers, reputational damage, and operating failures. Businesses rely on spreadsheets to the point that they are effectively critical to the success of the business. However, many of these businesses are not aware that there is even a risk associated with spreadsheets, let alone know how to manage that risk. This article looks at some…
Tweak Your Biz » Finance
Lies, Damn Lies And Spreadsheets: How To Prevent Spreadsheets Ruining Your Business
by on June 21st, 2012 11 Comments
DIY Management Accounting And Business Performance Review
by on April 10th, 2012 9 Comments
I’m a great believer in getting accountants and clients to work together for mutual growth. Alternatively, here’s how to do your own brief Management Accounting exercise. Hopefully this will underline the ease and value of the process! What you need: If your accounting system is not up to date, or you don’t have one, never mind, for illustrative purposes, go find the last set of accounts you can find. The Review So what are we looking at here? Your set of accounts will…
Use ‘Business Owner Snacks’ To Make Decisions Quickly
by on November 21st, 2011 37 Comments
Entrepreneurs like to keep moving and make decisions quickly. The successful ones have the intel to make quick but well informed decisions. How can they get that intel so fast? Don’t they have to wait for their accountant to prepare a set of financial statements and business metrics and explain it to them first? When my son was small, he was far too busy to sit down and eat. I would prepare bite sized chunks of food and literally fire them into his mouth as he flashed past me during his…
Don’t Delay Or You May Pay!
by on September 16th, 2011 9 Comments
It’s that time of year again. You’ve left your accounts until last minute and you need to rush to get them to your Accountant for filing. These tips can help to get your accounts finished quickly before the return date. Therefore saving your Accountant time and hopefully saving you some money. I appreciate it’s quite annoying if your Accountant is constantly calling you for this and that; fiddly little things that maybe you don’t see as important. We’re not ringing or emailing you…
Top Ten Tips For Managing Your Books
by on September 2nd, 2011 19 Comments
When it comes to your accountant, time really is money. The more you can do yourself to really reduce the workload for your accountant, the less time your accountant will have to spend on your accounts, and you may be able to negotiate a reduction on your fee. Alternatively, and preferably, your accountant may be able to divert attention from recording history and focus instead on helping you to shape your financial future. In the last post, we looked at getting the most from your accountant.…
How To Handle Your Accountant
by on August 3rd, 2011 22 Comments
Most small business owners make only one trip annually to see their accountant, often with a heavy heart… This trip is perhaps made because there is a compliance issue, either to submit tax returns and /or to present their results to the bank. In other words, the trip is forced upon them. For many business owners, the annual accounts exercise is not one that they look forward to. It’s right up there with arranging the refuse collection in the order of their priorities. This is…
Help Prevent VAT Fraud – Get Your Invoices Right
by on March 8th, 2011 14 Comments
Last week I had to purchase some equipment for the local company I do accounts for. As there was approximately €100 VAT involved I asked for an invoice in the shop. It was written out on headed paper in front of me and no copy made for the sellers records (and VAT return). Although it was just enough information for our records to be able to claim the VAT back I wondered if the VAT paid would actually make it to the Revenue’s coffers. This struck a chord in my Accountancy brain as it…
Accounting for Dummies: Part 3
by on February 21st, 2011 6 Comments
In a previous blog post I introduced the two key accounting documents that you use to manage your business. This post concentrates on the second one of these, the Balance Sheet. The balance sheet is a snapshot of all your assets and liabilities at a point in time, this can be the year end, month end, quarter end depending on your bookkeeping habits. The balance sheet has a direct relationship with the P&L as follows. The profit or loss retained for the period will equal the net increase or…
Advice For Chasing Debtors
by on February 10th, 2011 23 Comments
This post was originally published on Sian Phillip’s blogs Debt collection is not a nice job but a necessity to keep your business going. In these hard times it’s a task that seems to be more prevalent to businesses everywhere. Many years ago in my first ever job I did quite a bit of debt collection and have done since then on and off – quite successfully. I’ve recently picked up some work chasing debtors for a local company and it got me thinking it’s worth writing a blog to…
Are Your Accounts An Alien To You?
by on January 26th, 2011 11 Comments
So it’s the New Year. I wonder if one of your resolutions was not to leave your accounts until the last minute this year. We’re nearly all guilty of it; even I do sometimes and I’m an accountant. I thought you may like some tips to make your life easier and help you to stop viewing your accounts like an alien. This can also help your accountant for when you give aforementioned “alien” to be completed. Obviously the more of these tips you follow the better but we aren’t expecting…
Raj Tulsan is a small business columnist and regularly reports about business developments and scope. Tulsan is also an…
Loading ...
