CONDUCT A MID-YEAR FINANCIAL ASSESSMENT
Assessing your business finances mid-year is a great way to evaluate whether or not you are on track to hit your goals. It’s the best time to adjust if you’ve gotten off track. Adjustments are not bad, as most people believe, they help point you back in the right direction, but you have to know where you currently stand before you can move forward. Let’s start!
- Check-in With First and foremost, how are you? How do you feel about your business at the mid-year mark? Forget about your peers, your spouse, or your business partner for a minute. Concentrate on you, how do you feel about your business success? Do you feel like you’re on your way to getting whatever you initially set out to get? If not, this is a great time to clarify those goals. It’s like that saying “are you running your business or is it running you?” This is a great time to investigate that and make some moves.
- Review Your Financial Statements. Profit and loss statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements are standard documents to review during a financial checkup. Compare your financials right now to your financials from this time last year. Does everything look right? Look for trends and cycles. Look for mistakes. Could you have keyed something improperly when you were rushed? If something looks out of place, research it now and not at the end of the year when you are stressing over taxes.
- Revisit Your I will repeat this until the end of time. Budgets do not restrict you; they help you decide where to put your money. Check-in with your budget often and change it whenever necessary. A budget is fluid. It can change at any time and is dependent on your goals. If your goals change, so does your budget. What you thought would happen in January is not always what happens in June, August, or December. Costs increase, employees get promoted or quit (gasp), and sales go up or down. The point is that things change and your budget should act accordingly. This is a fantastic opportunity to assess what your money is doing. Look at what you forecasted for the year regarding revenue and expenses and see where you really stand. Change as needed.
- Evaluate Your Goals. Remember those goals you set for your business at the start of the year? It’s time to see where you’re at in meeting them. Whether you set concrete financial milestones, identified internal systems to change, or new technology you wanted to implement, take some time to see if you’ve made meaningful strides toward getting there.
- Check-in On Your Taxes. This is a great time to adjust your 3rd and 4th quarter estimated payments if you’re forecasting an increase in revenue for the second half of the year. If sales are down drastically you may want to contact your accountant to see if you should make any changes before December or pay less. If you haven’t made your estimated tax payments, then it might be worth scheduling an appointment with your tax professional. Putting off making tax payments causes unnecessary stress. Attending to taxes all year long can make for an easier, much less stressful Spring.
Building good habits, like running a mid-year financial checkup, is vital to the success of your business. Habits aren’t always easy to establish and maintain. Maybe you don’t even know where to start, that’s where building your team comes in. Find people to help with what you don’t know. If your business needs support, contact us today to schedule a consultation.