{"id":39707,"date":"2023-10-20T15:04:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/the-five-golden-rules-of-financial-management-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:04:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:04:00","slug":"the-five-golden-rules-of-financial-management-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/the-five-golden-rules-of-financial-management-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"The five golden rules of financial management &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"90\" height=\"110\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/mark-peskett.jpg\" alt=\"Mark Peskett\" title=\"Mark Peskett\"\/><\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-16690\" style=\"float: right;\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/mark-peskett.jpg\" width=\"90\" height=\"110\" srcset=\"https:\/\/startupsmart-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2010\/11\/mark-peskett.jpg 90w, https:\/\/startupsmart-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2010\/11\/mark-peskett-61x75.jpg 61w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 90px) 100vw, 90px\" \/> SMEs often have the wrong idea about financial management.<\/p>\n<p>  <span id=\"more-6161\"><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s either something their accountant takes care of, or a complex maze of information that\u2019s like speaking another language that\u2019s too hard to learn.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In reality, financial management is one of the most important elements of managing your business. Financial management allows you to have the right information at the right time, in order to make the right decisions.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With a little education and the right resources, you can achieve this and it will make all the difference to your business performance and personal wealth as a result.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Here are my five golden rules of financial management every business owner should know:<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>1. You can\u2019t be successful without strong financial management<\/h3>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to Dunn &amp; Bradstreet, more than 80% of small business failures in Australia are the result of bad financial management \u2013 poor cash flow, debtors out of control, lack of focus on profit margins, and overtrading beyond your business\u2019s ability to meet commitments.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>All of these issues can be overcome simply by implementing the right financial management systems and processes.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I have never seen a successful business that does not have strong financial management.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, even when it\u2019s your business, you can\u2019t know and do it all. So, if crunching the numbers is not your strength, either hire or outsource to someone who is an expert, then make sure they deliver frequent and reliable information and advice that you can use to manage your business and financial position.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>2. You can\u2019t manage what you don\u2019t measure<\/h3>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While I\u2019m a believer that gut instinct is sometimes valuable, having your results in black and white is hard to argue with. Deciding what to measure is the most important first step in this process.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You can measure just about anything, so get focused on what matters to you most. What\u2019s your biggest challenge right now? What keeps you up at night?<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If it\u2019s sales then focus on lead generation, conversions and purchase value. If it\u2019s cashflow, then collection days, turnaround time on issuing invoices or the amount of time sales staff spend explaining payment terms might be important.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Or maybe the most important feature for your customers is speed of delivery; so productivity, assembly, shipping and accurate completion of order forms is important to measure.<\/p>\n<p>Once you\u2019ve decided what to measure, make sure you give adequate thought to how you measure and use the information.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SMEs often have the wrong idea about financial management. \u00a0 It\u2019s either something their accountant takes care of, or a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39707"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}