It’s that time of year when we are all hoping we will be able to stick to our New Year’s resolutions.  According to a recent survey, five of the top ten resolutions made were health-related, be it to exercise more, eat healthier or quit smoking.   So, while I was dusting off my ab-flex and covering myself head-to-toe in nicotine patches it made me think ‘Why not make a New Year’s resolution to improve the financial fitness of our businesses?’

Here are just a few ideas which could usher in a much healthier and more profitable 2015…

• Training – knowledge is power. Time and again we make excuses not to attend training courses, claiming we are too busy or worrying about who will run things in our absence. However, by attending a financial training course you can potentially acquire new skills which can transform your company.   Why not commit now rather than continuing to put it off? Barnes Roffe offer a series of financial training sessions, along with some of our partners, on a variety of topics  such as Sage as well as understanding financial statements. On top of the subject matters, these courses are great networking opportunities where you may meet other interesting, like-minded people in the business world that you could potentially establish a working relationship with.

• Start early – The early bird catches the worm. Too often we leave things until near the deadline and then rush to get them completed. Why not implement new procedures which look to collate financial information throughout the month, quarter or year that bit earlier so that at the period end, accounts can be rolled out much sooner?

• Prepare a record of cashflow – Cash flow is still king. If you do not already, why not have a record of where your business’ funds are going? From this you could identify potential areas that are draining your liquidity and better manage fluctuations. There are many more benefits.

• Speak with your customers – There’s nothing like the personal touch! Why not look to make it part of your routine to speak with your customers more often, perhaps just one per day or week outside of the usual ordering etc? Even the odd phone call to check they are happy with your services could help to establish a closer working relationship and with it potentially more business, or shorter debt recovery times.

• Review costs – look after the pennies… By just selecting a cost category (say one per week) and benchmarking or putting out to tender, you could over the year make significant reductions. It is all too common that we only really deal with such issues when they are getting out of control.  By breaking this down to smaller bite size (diet) chunks it can be far easier to achieve results.

Now, none of these suggestions are exactly rocket science and may seem obvious but why not look to incorporate any of these into your New Year resolutions, whilst we still have the good intentions.