Getting Yourself Organised for the New Financial Year

By Alexi Boyd |

Small Biz Matters – a half hour program each week where you can work ON your business rather than IN it.
Small Business Bookkeeping Tips
with Alexi Boyd from Boyd Office Management Services
Date: 12 July 2016

Alexi welcomes Linda to the show, invites to share her business journey and what let her to become the creative organizer and started the business Creative Surrounds. Also, tell s a little bit about the business and why it is you’re an expert in your field.

Linda greets the listeners and and explaining the points above.

Intro on 3 topics below - General discussion on why its important to be organized

Improving your mental health, frees up your mind for other aspects of your business. Linda has statistics on clutter

Adding value to your business

Enables you to be ready for new opportunities

Making it make sense to others


Topic 1 - Adding Value to your business through the organization process

  • Why the beginning of the financial year is the perfect time to refresh & renew through organization
    • can reflect on wins and losses from previous year
    • Good time to do budget based on income/expenses from previous year
    • See when you have quiet months – look for patterns and use that downtime to strategise or do admin
  • Practical tips to get organized
    • Bookkeeping – Alexi
    • Soft copy filing structure (mirrors your hard copies and email folders)
    • Creating a fresh digital signature
    • Back end strategies to keep your office running
    • Limits on intrays and number of projects on the go
    • Diarise hard drive back-ups if not in the cloud.
  • Thinking of the bigger picture
    • Where do you want to be in 5 years time
    • Succession planning, exit strategies
    • Valuing your business for investment, personal income growth
    • What if something goes wrong?
  • Block it out
    • Make a meeting time with yourself to get it done YES diarise time!
    • Switch off your phone!
    • Some ‘highly effective’ people don’t have ‘to do’ lists, they put everything straight into their diary to account for time to do it

Topic 2 – Enable yourself to be ready for new opportunities

  • Frees up your time, mind and space to be on the ball and ready to drop everything for new clients, quickly send quotes and seem organized from the beginning
  • Free up your time through the use of contractors
    • Valuing your time through the hourly rate calculation so you know what contractors you can afford
    • Make a priority list of where you need help and your not-so-strong qualities where you need support
  • Practical ways to be ready for that new opportunity
    • Refresh your logo (have these in various formats to use)
    • Estimate/proposal documents ready
    • Ask clients & small business colleagues for testimonials

Topic 3 – Make sure it makes sense to others

  • When handing over to contractors it’s important they understand how your business works from an overall view as well as the procedural perspective. Then you can get the most out of their expertise
  • Be patient, it will take time to get the info out of your head
  • This also adds value to your business when selling
  • Having process documents in place
    • New employees’, contractors’ induction
    • Operational manuals
    • Software use process documents
    • Staff manuals
    • Your accounts completely up to date
    • Client lists up to date
    • Suppliers up to date