It always amazes me how many businesses view an expense as a negative. This is far from the case.

I would argue that there are three types of expenses:-

1. One type of expenses are those that are uncontrollable but necessarily incurred – such as a company paying its annual review fee to ASIC. You can’t control it. It doesn’t provide any benefit (other than staying registered). They are just costs of opening the doors every day (and therein lies a discussion for another day).
2. There are also those expenses that don’t provide much benefit and/or are controllable. You might be able to get a supply that is the same at a cheaper price (such as electricity). You might also choose to buy things in bulk or buy cheaper quality items that may no difference to a firm’s ability to do what it is does.
3. And then there are those expenses that are in reality investments. They may be treated as an expense and reduce profit but they determine the long term health of a business. You spend money on them and they provide a return. It could be advertising. It could be buying basic tools that make employees life more enjoyable and productive. One wise man once said to me that such expenses aren’t expense at all – they are resources necessarily incurred to generate a result. Such expenditure should be seen as positives not negatives.

It is amazing when meeting with clients to discuss their business to see what comes out of asking them to address which expenses are in effect investments. It is amazing how the focus on their activities changes – and their results improve.  No truer is this across the board than with employees.  They are the biggest or second biggest expense for most businesses – yet it is often an area not monitored and/or subject to cost cutting.

So now I ask the question is what value to do you get from your expenses?

So what are the key investments in your business? Do you focus on them and monitor and track what is happening?

The reality is most public tax accountants just prepare Tax Returns and BAS’s. They are focused in the past and not on the potential of their clients businesses.  If you would like a forward looking accountant focused on your long term success and security, why not call us to make a cost and obligation free meeting.

At MRS, we will spend today planning for your success tomorrow.

When I first started work there was a saying that 50% of advertising works, one just doesn’t know which 50% it is. That was even largely true 15 years ago.  Not today though.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) tools allow one to accurately test and track what is working and not working. Campaigns can be targeted and altered as necessary.  The results (sales generated versus dollars spent) can be accurately measured.  And much of this can be done quite cheaply by historical standards.

These SEO tools are amazing.

What is even more amazing though is just how little advantage small businesses take of these opportunities. May be 10 years ago, modern advertising tools still were the domain of big firms who could afford what was once costly.  Now though even the typical mobile phone has a camera with quality good enough to post video on a web page!

Not all businesses need a web page to survive and/or grow. However it has been interesting, or should that be alarming, to note that our retail clients who have struggled or shrunk have had no or little effective e-marketing.  Often what is not considered is that even though customers used to find them, customers are now looking for what they want by largely different means.  If you don’t exist in the new forms, then you are invisible.

To have an effective e-marketing campaign, a small business needs to address 10 common issues:-

1. Who is my customer?
2. What do they want?
3. Where are they?
4. How do they want to deal with me? Do I have a mobile responsive web page (by the end of 2014, half of all web searches were made on a mobile phones).
5. Does your web page include the features that Google ranks highly? You’d be surprised how effective videos are in this respect.
6. Does your web page enable customers to order on-line?
7. Does your web page enable customers to pay on-line?
8. Does your web page look fresh and up to date or tired and out of date?
9. If your industry doesn’t rely on selling on-line, does your web page clearly set out the call to action you would like your customer to make? If you want them to call you, is your phone number prominently stated? Does it provide the articles and matters of interest that your existing and potential customers are looking for?
10. Is your web page supported by integrated forms of social media? Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are the most common forms; they may not all be relevant to your business but one can’t disregard the lot.

One size/approach doesn’t suite all. To begin with, is your best approach pull marketing (advertising and direct marketing) or push advertising (such as positioning as an authority and leader as well as sharing of knowledge).

The businesses that handle all of this well have a documented marketing plan and systemised approach. The process of documenting the marketing plan ensures all key matters are considered and properly evaluated.  The systemised approach ensure that it gets done and done properly.

It is now 5 years since we ran an e-marketing workshop. Please register your interest by e-mailing admin@mrsaccounatnst.com.au and we will re-run it if we have sufficient interest.

At MRS, we will spend today planning for your success tomorrow.

Last week I attended a business planning workshop with a number of clients. Yes, I could have created the content myself – but that would have taken a lot of time whereas Peter Knight and Kate Groom have rolled out their interactive workshop (with workbook and action plan) to thousands of businesses around Australia.  The best and most efficient thing for me to do was to extend the offer for their course to my clients.

During that workshop, it was interesting to watch and hear my clients’ questions and observations. It reinforced the point that business owners so often focus on what they are good at and ignore and pay too little attention to what they are not good at.

Proper business planning requires one to address areas such as marketing & sales, admin & finance and employment & process/operations.

With the possible exception of Rick Charlesworth (state cricketer, Australian hockey player, Olympian, state parliamentarian, doctor, author and coach of Australian women’s and men’s hockey teams through periods of their greatest success), we are not good at everything. And people being what they are, business owners are good at one or two of these areas, not all three.

An undervalue benefit from business planning is that it forces one to address what one often tends to ignore.

So what should you do to avoid this common trap? You should use someone who is good at these areas to guide or deliver what is needed in these areas.  Obviously, we as accountants can help you with the finance areas.  We also have a panel of other professionals who we can recommend to help you with other areas.

A business can be strong in some areas. But so often the weakest link can detract from or even destroy the overall performance.  Don’t let that happen to your business.

At MRS, we will spend today planning for your success tomorrow.

I trust you had an enjoyable Christmas break. I have no doubt though that at some stage your mind wandered onto business matters and what you could do to improve the overall performance of your business.

Unlike during the year when people seem to be caught up on day-to-day issues (that probably were relatively unimportant in the long run), I bet what you thought about on your holiday were more of a high level and long-term nature.

Now is the ideal time to address those issues and do something about them.

In a world that is changing at an ever-increasing rate, it is always important to analyse your industry and your position within it. This is something every business owner and management team should regularly address.

We have a questionnaire and process that delves into such things as:-

• Levels of competition within your industry.
• Industry bargaining power.
• Unit cost and learning experience.
• Technology improvement within the industry.
• Industry vulnerability to further changes.
• Lifecycle management.
• Adequate rate of return within your industry.
• Is your industry growing rapidly?
• Does your industry has scope for geographical expansion?

As members of the global Principa network, we have access to their questionnaire and process that addresses these issues and what can be done about them to improve your overall position.

This is just one of the considerations that will be addressed in the business planning workshop on Thursday 28^th of January.  Please contact us if you would like to know more about that session.

At MRS, we will spend today planning for your success tomorrow.

So 2015 has gone and we are into a new year. 

Did you achieve in your business what you wanted to?

Even if you did, what new challenges lie ahead and what are going to do about them? 

Either way, the only way to improve your position is to plan.  Some good things happen by chance or luck but not many.  There is no substitute for proper planning.  Random thoughts in the shower or in the car don’t create clear and well founded direction.  You need to pull all your thoughts together and decide upon them in context of all other (at times geometrically opposed) issues whether they be marketing, HR, finance, positioning, budgeting and so on.

The best way you can make 2016 the best year yet is to start the planning process now.  And the best way of doing that is to attend the FAN (of which I am a member) business planning workshop.  It’s a three hour structured workshop run by Peter Knight (who is one of the smartest and most successful accountants I know and, like me, a member of the Principa Alliance) and Kate Groom who will be down from Sydney to run this course on Thursday 28^th January.  They are both highly credentialed and skilled speakers.

The workshop is interactive so you can ask any question you like. You will also be issued with a guide to continue the process.

You can book by going to:-

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/goals-business-planning-workshop-melb-tickets-19479213853

I’ll be there; I usually spend the first week of January behind closed doors undertaking this planning process but this time will be doing so in this workshop.  I look forward to seeing you on the day.

Make 2016 your best year yet.

At MRS, we will spend today planning for your success tomorrow.

We had a meeting with a new client during the last week. We discussed tax matters of course.  But what was of much greater importance and interest was the performance of the business.

Like most business owners, the owner wasn’t an accountant. Nor had they been trained in the features of their accounting software.  Their previous accountant hadn’t discussed this with them.  As it turns out, things that the new client wondered about were just a click away.

The three major software providers (MYOB, Reckon and Xero) are all remarkably cheap software for what they do. However, some have features the others don’t.  In this case they already had the software that best reported on the segments/divisions within their business.

We have shown and will now train them on how to segment and report on the different sections of their business. We also went on to discuss the most appropriate way to allocate proportional overheads to each section so we can begin to understand the real return from each segment of the business.

Does your software report on what is important to your business? Are you using the features within the software that can better assist you to run your business?  Or does you system only work for your accountant’s compliance needs and those of the Tax Office.

And are you using the best software for you?

At MRS, preparing a Tax Return is just part of what we do. It is not the end product.  Our focus is helping you run a more successful business (and to protect yourself).  We would welcome the opportunity to discuss how we can assist you in an obligation free one hour meeting.  Give us a call – you have nothing to lose and a lot to gain.

At MRS, we will spend today planning for your success tomorrow.

The Federal Government today released its Innovation Statement.  Part of the overall package includes some attractive tax announcements.

There have been few favourable tax announcements over the last 7 years so I relish the opportunity to pass on these attractive and common sense intended reforms with you.

Of the announcements, there were 4 that would most likely apply to our collective client base:-

1. The existing same business test will be relaxed. This test applies to companies who are trying to offset current year profits against past tax losses. The existing law is mean and unrealistic as it punishes a company from undertaking any form of new activity; at times it even punishes those companies barely tweaking their existing business model. It was announced today that companies will be able to enter into new business activities and transactions and do so without jeopardising the ability to offset past tax losses.
2. Newly formed companies (not trusts) will be able to attract investors with a non-refundable 20% tax offset. The investors will be able to reduce their personal tax liability by the amount of this tax offset. And there are steak knives with this – there will also be a 10 year CGT exemption for investments held for at least 3 years.
3. The existing insolvency laws will be relaxed for “risky projects.” Directors will be able to obtain a safe harbour from personal liability by appointing a “professional restructuring officer” who develops a plan to turn around a company in financial difficulty.
4. The existing default bankruptcy period of 3years will be reduced to 12 months.

Please remember though that there are only announcements.

We await the fine print which will appear in bills to be put before parliament some time in 2016.  We particularly await to see what if any announcements relate to those who are or would otherwise structure their operations through a discretionary or unit trust.

We welcome the opportunity to advise our clients as to how they may be able to utilise one or more of these announcements.

At MRS, we will spend today planning for your success tomorrow.

Most business owners are.

It always amazes how many clients happily pay increased prices to their suppliers and give wage increases to their staff, yet either don’t pass on the full increase, do so in arrears or worse still, not at all.  So they end up making less – and often working harder to make up the loss of profits.

We have some software that, amongst its other fabulous features, will calculate how many customers one would have to lose for a particular price rise and yet still make the same profit as before.  Now it remains unknown just how many customers will be lost – but with this software, I can tell a client what the magic number is at which the business makes less than before.

There have been three common outcomes from using this software with clients:-

1. They don’t lose as many clients as they first feared.
2. They lose few if any of their better customers.
3. The business performs a whole lot better, they worry less and they sleep better.

There is of course a process put in place to advise customers why prices are increasing.  On occasions, it has even been initially tested on a group of customers.

One of the initial such sessions in which I used this with a client started with them saying they would lose half their customers if they increased their prices by 10% (their prices had been the same for 2 years).  The calculated number was 42%.  Less than 30 seconds after saying he would lose 50% of his customers, upon seeing that tolerable customer loss rate was 42%, he said categorically that he would lose nowhere near 42% of his customers.  This is what replacing fear with probable fact does to the decision making process.

And what happened you ask – he lost barely any (and they were his worst customers anyway).  And the result – the bottom line (after allowing for salaries, super and fringe benefits to the owners) tripled.

This is one of the many ways we help our clients to understand what can become of changing the key drivers in their business.

At MRS, we will spend today planning for your success tomorrow.

I bought some fuel today and picked up a drink in the process.  As I did so, I saw one of those usual attractive deals – only an extra $2 for a drink (costing around $3.25) when buying a sandwich for $5.  The service station will have worked out this all out but it reminded how often small business owners get it wrong when discounting.

Take the situation of a firm which sells 10 items a day at $10.  Their costs of sale are $50 (so their gross margin is 50%) and their overheads are $30.  They make $20 profit a day.

Let’s say they offer a 20% discount.  Their cost of sale will remain at $50 (unless they can arrange a better deal) so they are now breaking even as their gross/trading profit is the same as their overheads.

Many clients get this but not all do.  However, what many clients fail to understand is how many more items they need to sell to make the same profit as before.  The answer in this example is a 66.67% increase sales – they now need to sell 16.67 units a day up from 10.  Or to put it more simply, if they sold 3 before, they now have to sell 5 just to hold their ground.  Is that possible?  May be it is, may be it isn’t.

The outcome of reducing prices in your business and the required increase in the number of transactions to make the same profit will depend on your margin, your cost structure and the level of discount.  We can show you this number simply.  With that knowledge, you can then make an informed decision.  All too often, people don’t know the result of making such a change and walk into what was an avoidable disaster.  Let us help you make an informed decision – in situations like this as well as many other scenarios whether they be quoting for work or responding to a customer’s’ request for a discount.  You have everything to gain and nothing to lose as we don’t bill possible clients for their first meeting.

At times it is appropriate to discount such as with getting rid of dead stock.  However, discounts are often a path to ruin.  If you are going to discount, make sure you do so understanding the variables at hand and therefore the likely outcome.

At MRS, we will spend today planning for your success tomorrow.