Detroit or the Bahamas - The Devil Is In The Details!
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Free Download - Detroit or the Bahamas - The Devil Is In The Details! By Steve McIntyre-Smith |
I want to cover something this issue that is timely, with it being the start of spring, many readers might be looking to book a summer vacation.
The work that goes into planning a trip can be enormous. I was lucky. Fiona (my late wife) was a travel nut, and so she would take great joy in meticulously planning every trip we took, researching locations, hotels, getting the best deals, looking up what vaccinations we need, getting travel insurance, ordering the currency and so on.
Yes, planning a vacation can be hard work!
The irony is, that many of us who spend so much time planning this trip, do not spend any time planning our own businesses. Yes, even if you’re a accountant in public practice, you are still running a business, and as such, your accounting firm needs the benefit of planning in order to be the best business of its kind that it can.
Tell me, honestly, do you write a business plan for your firm? I thought not.
Do you prepare a detailed cash-flow forecast and projections for the business? Again, I thought not.
The sad truth is, that many CPAs, CAs, CGAs and CMAs, will spend several hours planning, researching and booking their annual vacation, but spend next to no time at all on planning for their business – which produces the income to pay for the vacation!
See the irony here?
So, what should we do about it?
Well, I believe that preparation is nine tenths of a good job.
Being prepared for times of short cash flow means that you can plan for it and make the necessary arrangements well in advance. On the other side of the coin, letting thousands of dollars mount up in the business checking account hardly makes any sense either if you haven’t planned for this to have happened and do not have a business savings account to earn a little interest on the funds you’ve worked hard to accumulate.
Some ideas for planning your practice:
1. Sit down and think about what you want to achieve in the coming year
2. Describe the perfect client – and only market to prospects who meet that criteria!
3. Discuss with your partners your strengths and weaknesses and play to your individual strengths
4. Plan out the year ahead in terms of cash flow – put your clients into one of twelve months across an Excel spreadsheet, three to four months after the work is competed – to get an idea of when cash might be expected to come in from these clients, and spot any periods where there might be a problem before it happens!
5. Look at tax season (and other really busy periods in the year) and see if you have enough people to be able to complete the amount of work you’ll have to do, if you don’t, maybe you should look at hiring before you have a problem!
6. Is your I.T. up to speed or should you be investing in new software or hardware?
I could go on, but I guess you get the picture by now.
We need to plan ahead each year to make sure everyone has enough work to do, that we recover chargeable hours, that we can all get a break and take a vacation or two during the year, and that we move closer to our ultimate goals each year, whatever they may be.
I find that one of the best ways to do this is to take a Thursday and Friday during the summer and hold a partner retreat.
This should be an event away from the office, maybe in a hotel or resort, where there will be fewer interruptions (cell phones & blackberries turned off, please) and we can focus on building a better practice for you.
This should be a relaxed forum, where there is no such thing as a bad idea or a stupid question. The point of the exercise is to get away from the day to day distractions that keep us from setting goals, and to create an environment where we all want to work.
Having done that, then it is time to implement these ideas. Otherwise, what’s the point?!
By spending some quality time away with your partners may firms also get that stronger ‘bonding’ between them and only good things can come from that.
So, next time you’re sitting down with your significant other to plan the next vacation, please, spare a thought for how your practice is going to produce the cash to pay for it, and ask yourself if you really have done all you can this year to earn what you’re truly worth.
It could make all the difference between a 3 star hovel in Detroit, and a 5 star stay in, say, Barbados or The Bahamas.
Detroit or the Bahamas The Devil Is In The Details - To learn more about this author, visit Steve McIntyre-Smith's Website.
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