Written by Jennifer Barnes
Now is the time of year that you should conduct a review of your business and financial goals. A mid-year assessment allows you enough time to plan so that you can meet your annual goals or determine if you need to reassess your annual projections.
Here are some things you should include in your assessment:
Evaluate your budget
o Do revenue and sales projections need to be revised?
o Do you need to push your sales team to be more aggressive?
o Determine what is driving cash flow. Is there a specific product/service that should become your focus?o Is there anything you can do to close deals or sell product faster?
o Does your marketing plan require any adjustments to target a booming market, or provide a boost to an underperforming market segment?
o Has anything that factored into your projections changed enough that you should re-work your projections entirely?
o Can any re-negotiating be done to find better deals with key vendors to reduce expenses?
o Are you maximizing internal processes to minimize billing errors and write-offs?
o Has your income side dropped off enough that there is a need to reduce budgets?
o Conversely, are income and projections strong enough to potentially boost budgets in key areas?
Assess your cash flow year-to-date and project out the rest of the year
o Identify any gaps and be sure you understand when and why outflow is greater than inflow.
o To maximize cash flow, review slow-paying clients and push to get current with them.
o Ensure that you have cash reserves to cover expenditures in leaner months.
Meet with your tax professional to ensure your tax situation is where you expected it to be. Your CPA should help ensure that your taxes are paid, as well as recommend any adjustments to your payments and tax approach based on your revised projections for the second six months of the year.
After conducting your mid-year review, be sure to schedule one final quarterly review in the fall.
DISCLAIMER – Due to the daily changing environment and guidelines being provided by the government, this information could be outdated. Please contact our office for the latest updates and guidelines. Optima Office is not responsible for any actions taken due to the information provided. The information provided here is for instructional purposes and does not represent legal advice being given by Optima Office.