Financial year resolutions to improve cash flow

As the new financial year gets underway, now is the time to be reviewing your cash flow management processes and putting systems into place to increase efficiency. Financial Year

After the stress of tax filings, receipt compiling and yearly reports fades away, consider your future income objectives. Are you hoping to develop more stable revenue streams? Perhaps you are considering growth into new markets. 

Whatever your business goals this year, here are five new financial year resolutions that can help set you on the right track.

Find new efficiencies

With the 2013-14 financial year behind us, you may be tempted to leave the stress and worry from last year behind. However, before banishing the previous 12 months' worth of trading into the past, take some time to analyse your business's hits and misses.

You probably have a good idea of what strategies worked and which didn't, so this time should be an opportunity to reflect on why. What changes can you make over the next year to ensure mistakes and unsuccessful attempts are not repeated?

Get paid on time

Spending time and resources on tracking down late payments can be a significant burden on SMEs, so streamlining this process is an important objective.

Make sure you are getting the most out of Ezidebit, review your processes and make sure you are using the system to its full potential. For example, you can set up text message alerts to remind customers that payments are due or to inform them when payments fail. This reduces the instances when you need to contact clients and have awkward conversations regarding the funds in their bank accounts.

Reduce unnecessary costs

No business can operate without expense, but minimising these costs is crucial for SMEs running on small budgets. While some expenses, such as staff wages and inventory orders are unavoidable, other bills can be reduced or even removed altogether.

Reviewing your budget and identifying areas where you can cut down on costs is a key consideration for improving tight profit margins. It is important to remain vigilant yet constructive during this process to avoid cutting expenses that you eventually discover were critical to your business operations.

Tighten compliance

Avoiding unnecessary penalties and legal expenses is an important business consideration, particularly for SMEs with a budget and profit margins under pressure. Compliance can be an increasingly complex issue. However, as technology develops and security requirements become more expansive, it may require more attention in your business. Start be reviewing the manual processing of credit cards in your business. As you increase your customer count, you should make the most of automated payments through Ezidebit and outsource your credit card data compliance.

Embrace technology

As technology develops, it's easy for businesses to be left behind if they don't make an effort to embrace this movement. Efficient and cost-effective software is available in any industry to help streamline business functions, and even if you aren't integrating these systems, your competitors probably are.

Ensure you keep your place at the front of industry trends by considering these important new financial year resolutions.