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Planning for success

Planning for Success | Ashored Bookkeeping and Accountancy

Too many businesses fail to plan adequately, which is planning to fail. The business needs to determine its strategic plan, what does it want to achieve, what is its goal and vision. Spending time on this will pay dividends in the future. Once the goals are set they need to be reviewed regularly to make sure the business is on track to achieve the goals and ensure they are still appropriate.


The business owner is skilled in their own trade, but often not in business matters, such as sales planning, cash forecasting, organising staff and workloads. If the business does not have the skills to project managing, create cashflow forecasts, workflow charts and manage debtors and credit it should get advice or employ persons that can put the necessary systems in place.


Any plan that is created, however, is only of value if you stick with it. To do this time needs to be managed. Small businesses have a habit of filling every hour of the day and week with tasks, so many tasks that they are impossible to achieve. Proper time management means prioritising issues, determining what is important, what has to be done (& don’t just do the things you like to do). It is necessary to focus on the critical issues, create goal lists and break these down into weekly, monthly or annual goals. Delegate jobs that do not need your personal involvement to other staff members, and if some critical issues do not look like they will be dealt with, get temporary staff to help. Inevitably, some things will ‘slip between the cracks’, but if they are important enough they will resurface – and you will, of course, have prioritised the task and completed it if it was important. If it is not important it can be ignored, and you should actively eliminate unnecessary tasks. The goal lists needs to be reviewed on a regular basis as priorities will change over time.


There are tools that can help you manage time and tasks, such as Gantt charts, critical path analysis, Kanban boards etc. Make use of these to aid the business, but do not get distracted by management tools. Most of what you need to do can be completed by using flow charts, mind maps and project charts.


Contact Ashored for help and support with your business.

Contact Ashored Bookkeeping and Accountancy | Truro Cornwall

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