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Strategies for Thriving in a Tough Economy

August 8th, 2022

Whether or not you believe we’re heading into a recession, or even if you have come to believe that what we have now is pretty much as good as it’s going to get, there’s no getting around the fact that we’re experiencing poor economic times. An enduring lack of consumer confidence and decreased sales threaten all businesses, but small businesses are particularly vulnerable as they often don’t have the reserves to help them survive difficult times.

Entrepreneurs who are survivors will look at this as an opportunity to improve their business practices so they can not only weather the tough times, but thrive during them. How, then, can you recession-proof your business? Thinking through the following practices and how you can make them your strategies will help ensure your business’s success in a tough economy.

1. Protect your cash flow

To keep your business healthy, cash needs to continue flowing through it. As long as your business exists, you will have expenses. But the harder times get, the harder it can be to keep the cash flowing into your business. Be more diligent in how you are spending money. It’s important to be frugal and aware of your income and expenses. By doing a line item cost for each expense, you will be able to identify areas that need greater attention. Efficient cash flow management is crucial. The sections below are all, for the most part, areas that will have impact on your cash flow, but take special note of the ones regarding evaluating your vendors, reviewing your inventory management, and keeping your personal credit in good shape.

2. Streamline your business practices

This is an opportune time to review your business procedures for effectiveness. Consider areas that can be combined into one. Consider areas that can be structured differently to reduce costs. Think about sharing resources, like administrative or payroll work, with other entrepreneurs to reduce overhead. The goal is to streamline operations so you can still provide a quality product or service, yet realize a greater profit by reducing the expenses to produce it.

3. Evaluate your vendors

If you use vendors for packaging, labeling, distribution, or in other areas of your business, this is a good time to do some price comparisons. There is a lot of competition among vendors to attract new business, so you could realize some serious savings in this area. Since no one wants to lose business during a bad economy, chances are good that your current vendors will meet the competitor’s price. If not, it’s time to move your business to the lowest bidder, just as long as you’re not sacrificing quality.

4. Review your inventory management practices

See what can be done to reduce inventory costs without sacrificing the quality of goods or inconveniencing customers. Are you ordering too many of particular items? Can an item be sourced somewhere else at a better price? Is there a drop-shipping alternative that will work for you, eliminating shipping and warehousing costs?

Just because you’ve always ordered something from a particular supplier or done things in a particular way doesn’t mean you have to keep doing them that way, especially when those other ways may save you money.

5. Focus on your core competencies

A diversification strategy is often recommended for small business success. But too often small business owners simplify the concept of “diversification” to “different”. Just adding other products or services to your offerings is not diversification. It’s potentially just a waste of time and money. Worse, it can damage your core business by taking your time and money away from what you do best. It may even damage your brand and reputation. If you have diversified out into different areas over the years to improve market reach, it might be time to regroup and focus on the core of your business and outsource the rest. Evaluate what is and isn’t working and put more effort into what started you out as a successful entrepreneur in the first place. It’s important to get in touch with your core business and make sure it continues to meet the changing needs of customers. So consider dropping the extras and focus on what you do best and which is most profitable to recession-proof your business.

6. Develop and implement strategies to get your competition’s customers

If your small business is going to prosper in tough times, you need to continue to expand your customer/client base. If you have competitors, then they have customers. So, there are already people out there buying what you sell, just not from you. What will it take to attract those customers? You’ll need to offer something more or something different. Research your competition and see what you can offer to entice their customers into becoming your customers. It’s not only lower prices or a better price/quality trade-off that gets the business. Providing better customer service is often identified as one of the easiest ways to outdistance the competition. But you need to do the research in your own market to find out what it takes to be the customer’s first choice.

7. Make the most of the customers/clients you have

They say that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The bird in the hand is the customer or client you already have. These customers are an opportunity to make more sales without incurring the costs of finding a new customer.

Even better, he or she might be a loyal customer, giving you many more sales opportunities. If you want to recession-proof your business, you can’t afford to ignore the potential profits to be had from established customers. But remember that your customers are going through tough times too. In order to retain their business, implement measures to express your appreciation. This could be a one-time price reduction, a customer loyalty card, or a referral incentive. Whatever the strategy may be, it should be something of value to the customer and within your marketing budget.

8. Continue to market your business

In lean times, many small businesses make the mistake of cutting their marketing budget to the bone or even eliminating it entirely. But lean times are exactly the times your small business most needs marketing. Consumers are restless and looking to make changes in their buying decisions. You need to help them find your products and services and choose them rather than others by getting your name out there. So don’t stop marketing. In fact, if possible, step up your marketing efforts.

9. Keep your personal credit in good shape

Hard times make it harder to borrow and small business loans are often among the first to disappear. With good personal credit, you’ll stand a much better chance of being able to borrow the money needed to keep your business afloat if you need to. To recession-proof your business, keep tabs on your personal credit rating as well as your business one and do what’s necessary to keep your credit ratings in good shape.

There’s absolutely nothing that will make your small business one hundred percent recession-proof. But implementing the practices above will help ensure your small business survives tough times and might even be able to profit from them.

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Posted in accounting, best practices, bookkeeping, break-even, budget, business goals, business plan, cash flow, cost, customer retention, customer service, financial management, Inventory, management, profit, QuickBooks, small business, strategic planning

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Q: Is it me or is QuickBooks getting harder to use? A: Its you.

February 27th, 2016

Is it me or is QuickBooks getting harder to useAs a long time QuickBooks professional, I have to ask, “​Is anyone really saying that QB is getting harder to use?”

Everything you have learned over the years is pretty much the same. Sometimes the interface gets modified, but that’s an easy adjustment. You might not even need the newer features, and can almost certainly get by without them if nothing related has changed in your business. And unless to use payroll or other features that require an online interface, you might not ever need to buy the new version. I have clients still using QB 2010.

If you change to QB Online you will find the interface to be very different, but then of course, it’s a different program. None of my clients that made the switch had difficulty adjusting to it, maybe because I toured them through the features they need to use themselves. If you subscribe to one of the low end, less expensive versions, you might burn a lot of time looking for features and reporting that don’t exist. Frankly, it is my option that these limited low-end QBO versions are just a ploy to get you vested in the product. Intuit knows that you will upgrade before long, especially if you need common small business features such as being able to produce 1099s for your contractors.

The difference between finding QB easy or hard to use is all about learning the proper use of the program. Just like everything else you do. If you don’t learn how to use it, it will be hard for you to use properly.

The next issue is that even though you don’t need to be an accountant, it helps a lot to understand accounting/bookkeeping basics. If you don’t, then you will have some degree of difficulty using it, and even worse might be creating a mess out of your books. The best boost in business I ever received was back when Intuit ran advertisements (for many years) with the slogan, “With QuickBooks, you are only a click away from being your own accountant”. Thousands of small business owners believed that, bought QB, and proceeded to make a real mess out of their books.

Even to this day, I rarely take over the bookkeeping of a new client without having to start out by fixing a large amount of problems related to the miss-use of the program, and then proceed to edit their Chart of Accounts to make their QB a better reflection of the actual business and the kind of information the owner needs to make the best possible business decisions. That is the case even when they had a bookkeeper doing the work for them. So many bookkeepers have learned QB, but still don’t know basic accounting or how a business functions. There is a lot more benefit in the proper use of any accounting software than just keeping track of things so you can file tax returns. An awful lot.

 

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Posted in accounting, best practices, bookkeeping, QuickBooks, small business

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Taking Action on Cash-Flow

December 28th, 2015

Cash Flow womanCash flow is the lifeblood of any business, and in any business there are cash flow dangers. There is a capacity for a business to accumulate costs. They gradually grow month-by-month and your cash flow gradually diminishes to a trickle and finally dries up. Your only defense is to watch, record, compare and trend your costs.

Understanding what the numbers mean is crucial to your cash flow. Are sales trending up or down? Are expenses rising faster than sales? Is one product more profitable or better selling than another? How much do I need to sell to meet expenses each month? The answers all lie in the numbers.

The best way to measure cost trends is by analyzing the expense categories in your accounting software, and ideally graphing them to get a better visualization of their impact. If your company’s chart of accounts is properly designed, you can produce the graphs for each cost item and quickly be able to see that your power bill, for example, is gradually rising. This new perspective can now lead to an informed change in behavior that will reduce those costs or at least reduce the increase in those costs.

Once you have established your costs, you should compare them against the industry average, or at least use your own common sense and business experience. If you keep your books accurate and up to date, you will be able to calculate the relationship between your gross sales and the expenditure in any category. For example, with the help of your historical accounting data, you may decide that your postage should be 2% or 3% of gross sales. When you look over your month-end reports, you may discover that it has risen to 5%. Catching it early, you can now take corrective action.

If you are able to control your expenses, you can develop a healthy constant cash flow. When your bills are greater than your sales/receivables, your first reaction is most likely that you need to increase sales and collections. Although that is always a good idea, even when there isn’t a cash flow problem, there is still very good reason to pay particularly close attention to your expenses. If when looking at your figures you see that it takes five dollars to put one dollar on your bottom line, it then takes $5,000 of sales to yield $1,000. This means that saving $1,000 in costs is exactly the same as generating $5,000 worth of sales.

You need to look at your cash flow from an informed perspective. Here are five areas to focus on:

1. Mismanaging Credit
There are two common ways to mismanage credit in small business; granting credit without specific credit policies, and using credit with no plan for how to pay for it.

Both have a huge impact on your cash flow and are often closely related. For example, you have an opportunity to work on a big project, for which you will need to order materials. Your supplier expects payment in 30 days, but you won’t receive cash for the project for 60 days. Right away you’ve put yourself into a cash flow crunch that could take months to recover from financially. In the meantime, you’ve passed on smaller jobs that would have provided quicker cash at less cost. And, if you’re unable to pay your supplier on time, you’ve endangered that relationship as well.

2. The relationship between Receivables and Payables
In a perfect world, what customers owe you would be paid just in time for you to pay what you owe your vendors. But, as any small business owner knows “stuff happens”. The customer you thought would pay this week, doesn’t. So the bills you thought you’d pay this week, don’t get paid. Are your payables in balance with you receivables? If what you owe to others is far more than what is owed to you, then you have a cash flow problem. And if your receivables are particularly old, chances are you’ll never see that cash at all.

3. Focusing on profit instead of cash flow
Is profit the ultimate goal of every business? Did you know that many businesses that fail are operating at a profit? How can that be? For the small business, cash flow is the ultimate goal. No cash flow. No business.

The difference is mostly in the decision making process. If you take on this big job, it will earn you a huge profit, but if you take on five smaller jobs, you’ll have cash to pay your bills. Yes, you want to be profitable, but every decision has to be measured against the effect it will have on cash flow.

4. Don’t forget your debt to the Tax Man
Some bills are easy to forget. Bills like sales tax, payroll taxes, estimated taxes. They just sit out there, almost off the radar. They don’t have to be paid right away. It’s easy to forget about them. But when they’re due, they’re due right now. And you better have the money to pay them or you’re in hot water with the Tax Man. That is not a place anyone wants to be. Pay them late or not at all and you end up with penalties and interest on top of what’s already due. Using the money that needs to go toward taxes to solve cash flow problems results in even more, and probably worse, cash flow problems when those taxes come due. It can take months or even years to recover.

5. Spending your company’s future on a sailboat
Haven’t you always wanted a boat, a fancy car, or a trip to Tahiti? It might be tempting to try to pass your personal purchases off as tax-deductible business expenses. But, it’s a bad idea for two reasons.

The people at the IRS are over-worked, but they weren’t born yesterday. The last thing you need is an audit that could reveal your transgressions and result in an unexpected tax bill plus penalties and interest. No company’s cash flow should have to suffer that indignity.

The other reason it’s a bad idea is that you are spending your company’s future on unnecessary expenses. Small businesses operate close to the edge. Unless you have a reserve to see you through the tough times, you’re always in danger of being on the wrong side of that edge. You must take care of the cash flow first. Then, you can pay yourself a properly taxed bonus and buy all the toys you want.

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Posted in accounting, Accounts payable, Accounts Receivable, action plans, best practices, cash flow, entrepreneur

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Controlling Overhead Costs

May 22nd, 2015

Overhead CostsThe cost of overhead can put your company in an uncompetitive situation due to the buildup of excessive expenses incurred in the running of your company. Without a breakdown of costs into production and overhead categories, you might not realize how much you’re actually spending on the operations side of running your company. Regular financial reporting and budget variance analyses will help to maintain the appropriate cost structure in a sustained fashion.

Overhead

The costs you incur to run your business and sell your product make up overhead. These are expenses you have even when you aren’t making your product. They include expenses such as rent, marketing, phones, insurance, administrative staff, office equipment, interest, office supplies, etc.

Identify All Overhead

The first step in determining your overhead is to identify it. If you don’t record every expense you have on a budget sheet or other financial report, do so. Start by creating production and overhead reports. Production expenses are costs that apply directly to making your product, such as materials and labor. Next, break down your overhead by function, such as marketing, human resources, information technology, office administration and sales.

Create a Purchasing Process

Assign one person to review and approve purchases so that they can see all expenses that are planned to be made before they are paid. Set policies for spending, such as requiring competitive bids for purchases over a certain dollar amount. Have your purchasing manager shop for better deals on common items you buy. Consider offering a bonus if your purchasing agent meets specific savings targets without sacrificing quality.

Review Contracts

If you outsource functions or sign leases, rebid your contracts annually, even if you end up using the same vendors and suppliers each year. Rebidding contracts prevents longtime contractors from inflating their fees, or encourages them to offer more services to keep your business. Frequently this will result in lower costs. A multi-year contract will usually favor the vendor. So, if you haven’t shopped your insurance in the past two years, do so, and discuss with your current provider how to reduce your premiums. Ask your utilities providers to visit your workplace to perform an audit and recommend how you can cut your monthly water, gas and electric bills. This annual process is a lot of work, but it sure pays off.

Improve your bookkeeping and accounting practices

From the start of the business, ensure that your accounting reports keep you aware of spending and revenue. This will help you analyze where you have over spent and where you can cut down on unnecessary expenditures. Well organized and up-to-date books have benefits beyond tax issues.

Technology will help improve productivity

There are many cloud-based tools now that will help your business save money, such as online invoicing, project management and others. Most vendors will offer a free trial period. The resulting efficiencies will reduce overhead costs.

Keep the head count constant

Efficiency is gained when revenue per employee grows. Technology, lean techniques, process engineering, etc. all are ways to free up time so employees can become more productive without having to add new headcount to grow. What if you could replace your lowest 10% of performers with new people that matched your top 10%? This would result in a huge productivity boost at virtually no incremental cost. There are a lot of techniques to improve productivity, but the point is that constantly growing headcount certainly will result in overhead growth that won’t necessarily result in profitable revenue growth.

Contemplate hiring freelancers or contract employees

There are certain functions in almost any business that can be outsourced to reduce the cost of space and other overhead. If you are hiring a full time employee, there are payroll expenses, health insurance and other costs that may be associated; this will slowly eat into profit.

Keep an eye on energy consumption

Switch off lights and other equipment when not in use. This might reduce energy consumption by 20%. If possible, use laptop computers instead of a standard desktops. Laptops consume approximately 80% less energy.

Reduce your phone bills

Use Skype, Google Chat or other chat services to get in touch with your employees or freelancers. You can also use web conferencing tools, such as GoToMeeting, to meet with clients online or make a presentation. It will significantly reduce your travel cost.

Ask vendors to own “their” inventory

Have vendors keep title to their inventory until sold. Normally inventory acquired from a vendor is held in your warehouse for use in manufacturing or resale to your customers. But why think of it as your inventory? It hasn’t been used yet so why can’t it still be their inventory? Best planning results in “just-in-time” delivery so there is no inventory. But this isn’t always possible, for instance, in industries like retail where a certain amount of inventory is necessary for your customers to by when they walk into your store. But again, why are you paying them and then sitting on their inventory? They need to own the inventory until time of sale.

A dollar gained in revenue is a very good thing assuming it leverages the current cost structure. But remember, only a small portion reaches earnings. A dollar saved from cost, however, goes directly to the bottom line. So while focusing on the top-line, don’t forget to engage in a systematic approach to controlling costs as a way to ensure long-term value creation.

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Posted in action plans, best practices, bookkeeping, Overhead, Uncategorized

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Sole Proprietor Start-Up Tips

February 26th, 2015

Sole Proprietor

When starting a new business, many aspiring entrepreneurs will launch it as a side venture to their current career employment, a.k.a. their day job. So there may not be a big rush to create a complex and expensive legal entity such as a Corporation. In many situations a simple sole proprietorship is the most appropriate way to go.

 

KISS

Keep it simple starting out. The simplest form of entity for running your new business is a sole proprietorship. This form of ownership requires no special communication or filings to the Internal Revenue Service until you start paying employees and/or taxes.

Sole Proprietor

As a sole proprietor you are the owner of a business that might only need a business license/permit if your county or city requires it. If you are the owner of a business that sells items that require sales tax, you will need a reseller permit, and are liable to remit all state and/or city taxes on retail, and maybe wholesale, sales your business collects. Service businesses and most cross state sales are exempt from state sales tax.

Liability Insurance

If you are concerned about personal liability, then the simplest thing to do is to buy a personal liability umbrella policy. Additionally, the best way to avoid liability is to learn your trade well and keep accurate accounting records.

No Company Taxes, Just Yours

Profit from a sole proprietorship is reported on your personal tax return. The IRS won’t even know your company exists until after you file your first personal income tax return. This will include a Schedule C which reports all of the revenue and expenses your business has incurred. In most states, including California, certain state minimum taxes are not require of sole proprietorships. You will, however, have to pay any sales tax you have collected from your customers. And since sole proprietorship losses will offset income from you day job, you might even receive a tax refund. So concentrate on building your business, not communicating with the IRS

Just a Personal Bank Account Will Do, But Don’t

Although advisable as a sound business practice, you are not required to have a separate bank account which is a necessary compliance for a LLC or Corporation. As you get your business set up you could pay your startup costs out of your personal bank account, but once you’re in business and making sales, file a Fictitious Business Name Statement and use the paperwork to open a business bank account. Keep complete and accurate records so you can be sure to get the best possible tax advantage from those early-stage costs, and not get them mixed up with your personal expenses.

Simple to Start, Simple to End

Over 85% of small businesses fail or change ownership within the first five years. Plan your business to thrive but if it fails as a sole proprietorship, you simply stop doing business. No communication or special forms with the IRS, no additional taxes to get your investment returned and no high accounting fees to close out your company. Just mark the Schedule C in your next personal tax return as “final”.

Getting Paid

In a sole proprietorship you just take the money out as a draw. No payroll taxes or quarterly forms needed. Many startups lose money for the first year, and maybe longer, so keep your day job to pay your living expenses.

Evolving Beyond the Sole Proprietorship

As your business becomes profitable talk with a CPA about another entity type that might save you taxes. Just a simple bookkeeping entry transfers all of the business assets from the sole proprietorship into the new entity without any tax penalties.

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Posted in accounting, best practices, entrepreneur, small business, Sole Proprietorship

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