Grant funding available for leadership and management development

Did you know that money is available right now to businesses in Oxfordshire and the South East? This £1000 matched funded Government grant is a limited offer, and allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Available to business owners who are looking to engage their staff in their plans for growth, you could qualify if your business employs fewer than 250 people, has at least one employee in addition to yourself and has the potential for growth. Skills South East will undertake an assessment to determine eligibility. A1 have just been successful in obtaining a grant for a programme with SMI UK.

week included new client meetings, bookkeeping and generally a good start to 2012

week included new client meetings, bookkeeping and generally a good start to 2010

Keeping financial records

Maintaining proper accounting records is vital in terms of monitoring how well your business is doing. A good financial system will be able to tell you how profitable your business is and easily track monies owed to you or the liabilities you are due to pay. At A1 Financials, we are asked what a good financial accounts system should include and we advise • Day book (ins & outs) • Sales invoice template • Sales invoice record and file • Purchase invoice record and file • Bank statement file • Petty cash book • Credit card management • Asset register • VAT returns • Other records personal to your business

week included bookkeeping, great Pathfinder club meeting and catching up with some old associates.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

week included collating video testimonials for a client, bookkeeping and Chamber AGM

Why do Businesses fail?

We are obviously in difficult economic times right now and many businesses are struggling with less customers, greater overheads and cashflow concerns. Although these are easy reasons to be given, not all business failures can be blamed on the economy. Research has indicated a few other areas that all business owners should keep reviewing:

Not enough capital
Growing too fast
Hiring the wrong people
Lack of experience in the team
Too few customers
Incorrect pricing
Poor financial controls
Bad debts
Poor control of your overheads
Competition
Poor communication with staff
Health issues of the key people
Bad management & Poor supervision
Poor communication with suppliers
Poor communication with customers
Bad luck
Poor planning

Stock in your business

At A1 Financials, we are quite often reviewing stock with our clients. So is there a right level of stock?Stock levels are a key consideration as the incorrect stock level may impact on your ability to deliver your product on time, disappoint and you could lose sales.To establish an initial stock level, we believe that you should start by listing your requirements. At start up this will be established from your market research and vision or if you are purchasing an existing business, then it is usual to include the purchase of any stock at handover, but we suggest you keep your eyes open for potential obsolete stock. Once you have a list of your stock requirements, then you should seek suppliers of these products and negotiate the best deal for business. Talk to these suppliers as they may have tips to share from their experience and expertise, but take care it is not just sales techniques.Sometimes it may mean that instead of buying all your stock from different places just to save the odd penny on certain items, then you may consider the benefit of purchasing all stock from a few suppliers to maximise your ordering time and benefit from either combined or free delivery costs. But again supply is critical, so don't put all your eggs in one basket.

Insurance

Over the last year, we have seen two clients experience the difficulty of claiming on an insurance policy. Unfortunately only one was covered and paid, the other did not have the right cover. Here is a checklist of some of the more common insurances that you may need for your business:

Employers’ liability
motor insurance
public liability
product liability
buildings & contents (fire, theft, damage)
professional indemnity
contract insurance
credit insurance
key person cover
legal expenses
business interruption
portable equipment
business money
goods in transit
loss of stock
specialised requirement (eg retailers shop front)

This is not a comprehensive list and there may be insurances specific to your business or sector. Hopefully you will never need to claim, but we recommend that you take independant specialist advice in this area.

week included bookkeeping, new clients, franchise prospect meetings, Pathfinder club event and networking

Are you online for leads?

Do you have your eyes and ears open online and looking for opportunities? It is perhaps not as time consuming as we think with many tools automating such activity for us. For example,

Google Alerts to track keywords and phrases
LinkedIn groups for threads and discussions
LinkedIn connections for referral contacts
Following and reading blogs or forums for clues
Searching Twitter for keywords or conversations
Searching Facebook for fan pages and discussions

week included seminar planning, franchise meetings, bookkeeping, Pathfinder club, first aid training