5 tips to help businesses prepare for the new financial year

We’re just weeks away from the end of the financial year and despite the challenges many businesses are still trying to navigate, including snap lockdowns and restrictions on movement, it’s important to prepare for the new financial year.

We’ve put together some tips to help you streamline your EOFY obligations and prepare for the new financial year.

Get your paperwork up to date

Having all of your important paperwork in place can assist you in getting the right tax outcomes for your business. Make sure all of your records are up to date, including receipts for sales and purchases, tax return records, employee super contributions, GST returns and Business Activity Statements (BAS). If you’re still keeping paper copies of documents, the new financial year might be the time to go paperless! Going paperless will help you streamline this process next year.

Review your finances

There’s no better time to review your business’s finances than at the end of the financial year. For SME’s, some of the yearly tasks you should complete include creating a profit and loss statement, which summarises your income and expenses. You should also conduct a stocktake, review your records of debtors and creditors and collate your records of asset purchases. With your accountant or bookkeeper, you should assess whether you met your targets for the year and analyse what you can do to improve next year. Creating a cash flow forecast for the new financial year will help you to manage any potential shortfalls, while ensuring you can still pay your staff and suppliers.

Touch base with your clients and customers

Your customers are essentially the backbone of your business. Having a good working relationship with each client or customer can work wonders for the success of your business. Building rapport can also give you insight into your business that you wouldn’t otherwise get. Now is a great time to reach out to your clients and customers to see how things are going for them. Finding out what their current pain points are will allow you to tailor your services to better meet their needs. You should take any client feedback on board and use it to improve your business.

Stay on top of your technology and processes

As your business grows and expands, you’ll most likely find that it outgrows the technology and business processes that you’re currently using. Think about your software and the programs you utilise: are they still serving your business efficiently, or is it time to upgrade? Can you integrate any areas of your business to streamline a process? Making sure your business is running as efficiently as possible will save you money and energy in the long run.

Update your marketing plan

When you’re running a business, it can be hard to find the time to sit down and review your marketing plan, but it’s essential if you want to best reach potential customers. This is especially important if you haven’t reviewed your marketing plan in a while – if your business has grown since you last put together your plan, you’ll more than likely require a new marketing approach. EOFY serves as a great marker in the calendar for many businesses to update their marketing plan based on refreshed and revised business achievements and goals.

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