One of the things Alwyn Cosgrove taught me is that you need to be constantly tracking progress to goal. Every year he sent out a post at the beginning of July which reminds you that it’s halfway through the year, so you should be 50% to your (insert weight loss or fitness performance goal here).
The same thing is true of your business.
By now you should have your Q2 numbers in hand and be evaluating your company’s performance over the first half of the year.
Now is the time to compare your actual Year-To-Date progress with the goals you set for your company at the end of 2018 (You did set goals, right?)
At the least you will want to see how your sales are tracking compared to Q1 2019 and also compare to Q2 2018. You can pull a Profit & Loss and Cash Balance report from your accounting software and run those comparisons. You will also want to compare your total expenses for the same periods and evaluate the ratio of expenses to sales. Evaluating expenses on a quarterly basis, and working to increase revenue at a greater rate than expenses, is one of our primary focuses with my FFP clients, as this is how greater profits are created.
One of the other things I do with my clients is make their financial lives easier. The less time it takes to get information that matters (eg. helps make better decisions) the more time you have to focus on other areas of your business.
For my clients using the Fit For Profit Dashboard, there is no extra work involved to comparing their quarterly financial performance at a glance. Every time they calculate and record an allocation, the dashboard automatically tracks performance on a monthly, quarterly and yearly basis, and shows progress to goal.
Here’s a (not so) top secret video walkthrough of “Tab 6.0 – PF Allocations”, a Fit For Profit exclusive available only to FFP clients.
Please expand the video to full screen for best viewing.
The fact is that if it’s not easy to do your financial comparisons, you are probably not going to do it. As a small business owner you are pulled in a hundred different directions, I get it. My mission is to simplify your life and make your cash work for you. This is one more way to make that happen.
Q3 will be over before you know it. Schedule your Profit Maximizer Call today and let’s talk about how to make managing your cash easier.