I love the end of the month. I love the anticipation of reviewing the financials. I love seeing if the decisions we have made are creating positive changes in our business. What about you?
Financial reports must be functional. If a CPA created them but you only review them during tax time, are they really that helpful? Do your financial statements represent what is happening in your business? We are firm believers that financial statements should be used as guide posts to the decisions we make today and in the future.
My challenge to you would be to evaluate these areas of your business:
1.
When do you review? If it's after the 10th of the month, your processes are moving too slow or you're not using the data for decision making. How can you adjust the month you are in if you aren't getting the data until half way through it?
2.
What questions do you ask? What is the first thing you look at when you get your month-end report? Did sales go up? Did expenses stay in line? Are you budgets out of whack? Come up with a couple of "go-to" questions that you review each month.
3.
When was the last time you changed something in your business because of the financials? If you aren't making decisions EVERY MONTH based on what you see in the numbers, do yourself a favor--stop doing financials! Why track all this stuff it if doesn't give you insight?
I'll hop off my soapbox now. We love talking about this stuff so if you want to chat, just give us a call.
