Finances are everything to business. It’s how you support your family, compensate your employees, pay your bills, and it’s how you’re able to do work that you love while making a profit. Whether you’re good with numbers or not, feeling confident with your finances is not an inherent quality of being a business owner. It doesn’t matter why you’re lacking financial peace of mind; what matters is that you move forward, own your finances, and find a confidence that will carry you through to your next big move.
Get to know your company’s numbers
Knowledge is power, and while we usually hear the phrase applied to other industries, it also pertains to your company’s numbers. While you may sit in the c-suite and have a good oversight of your finances, have you really looked at them lately? In order to truly understand the behavior and trends of your numbers, it requires a comprehensive and hands-on approach that digs deep into all of your finances. This is where a trusted financial advisor can really help out, as they can provide an outsider’s perspective regarding the health of your company’s numbers. Where are the gaps? How can efficiencies be improved? Where are your growth opportunities? Sometimes owners and execs are too close to the finances to truly see what is happening. Once you and your advisor study, grasp, and interpret your company’s financial data, you can feel confident about taking the next steps to improve the profitability and health of your company’s finances.
Develop financial goals
You might already implement goal setting practices at your company such as retention efforts or culture development, but what about your finances? Your financial goals should be extremely specific regarding what you want your financial numbers to look like, how you are going to achieve that goal, and what kind of time frame you have to reach your accomplishment. To arrive at your financial goals, it will be imperative to examine inefficiencies and produce financial clarity on all levels. It is never too early or too late to set financial goals. No matter if you’re struggling financially, ahead of the game, or hitting a plateau, it’s up to you and your trusted advisor to make a plan that will carry you forward. When you have detailed goals in place, and you understand how your everyday choices align with your future, it will allow you to feel confident in your company’s financial direction.
Prepare for the worst
Once you understand every aspect of your finances and develop financial goals for your company’s future, you also need to plan for the worst. Whether it’s in the form of an emergency fund or a Plan B, it’s crucial that you consider worst case scenarios that your company could encounter, so that you’re not left scrambling around trying to figure out where to go when you end up on shaky ground. Financial confidence is more than understanding where you’re at today and where you want to be tomorrow. Financial confidence is knowing that if you lose that client or don’t retain enough customers, that you know what to do next. It’s more than estimating or predicting how your company will do in the future; it’s about contemplating what will happen when your company doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. Answer those what ifs and be confident in the best and worst of financial scenarios.
Prioritize finding confidence in your company’s finances so that you can have financial peace of mind in the good times and during the rocky moments. Reach out to a trusted advisor or ask for expert financial help so that you take your company where you’ve always dreamed it would go, and you feel confident every step of the way.
Myers CPA acts as a fractional CFO/outsourced accounting firm, so you can focus on your business, while we focus on the finances.