The last few days we have been asking questions to encourage you – the small business operator – to analyse how your business is going and identify areas that may need change. So far we have considered Market Conditions, Industrial Relations and Business Performance. Finally, we are up to the numbers…
Financial Reports
Has your business prepared departmentalised financial accounts?
Are financial accounts distributed to team leaders and other members of the team?
Could your business’ profit and loss accounts be sectionalised into departments or teams so as to make financial accounts more relative to individual sections or teams?
Have key performance indicators been prepared for all sections or teams?
How did the KPIs compare to budget expectations?
Have you reviewed the balance sheet, especially supplementary information such as debtors’ days outstanding, stock turn achieved, investment in stock, bank exposure (overdraft loans and other financial commitments, leases and hire purchase agreements etc.) as compared to budget expectations?
Perhaps an even better question is do you know what all these terms mean and understand why they are important? If you’re not clear on any of the “accountant-speak” in this post, please post a comment to let me know and I will expand on definitions.
