What you should have in place by 1st April
For most in New Zealand, a new financial year begins on April 1st and while most items have been checked off, and rolled over into the new year, a big item that many businesses won’t have in place is their budget for the new financial year.
Planning should be well underway, and all our clients should be looking at their interim results and consulting with their account managers to draft, review and finalise their 2024-25 budgets.
Your budget will help you keep track of your income and expenses and show you where your cash will be coming from.
Here are our top 3 tips to consider when making your next budget:
- Review the last year.
Last year’s budget will show you where you performed well as well as identifying areas of concern. Your accountant will also be able to help with this and may have further insights that can help your business move forward. Look at where you exceeded expectations and where there’s room for improvement. This will show you where to focus your efforts for the new year.
Other things to consider here is whether you can reassign any leftover funding from the last financial year, your value proposition – is there room to increase your pricing, and any upcoming legislative changes that may affect you.
- Processes are important.
If you have a bookkeeper to prioritise your accounts process most of the hard work is done. But it’s still important to record and manage your financials as efficiently as possible throughout the year. If you find yourself struggling to manage payroll, keep up with invoices or chasing overdue payments, then management of your business won’t be as effective and you may find good value in a bookkeeper.
- Make it happen.
Your figures will remain numbers on a page if you don’t put them into action. If you have new initiatives for your sales team or cost reductions in certain areas of the business, you’ll need someone to action them. Assign your initiatives to people outlining what needs to be done and by when and then review these regularly to help people stay on track.
Getting your planning and budgets in place prior to the start of the financial year means conversations with Managers can be positively focussed and provide a platform for your success. Don’t think of this as a laborious task. Our team are here to help. Taking the time to reflect on your business can be motivational allowing you a chance to think about what could be.
