So, your business is finally up and running and you’re starting to feel the excitement of success. This is good news, but not the time to sit back and relax. Establishing a business takes time, but maintaining it and keeping your eyes on long-term financial success is ongoing.

It’s not enough to grow your client base and start seeing your revenues take you beyond the breakeven stage. Instead, you want to adopt real-time tracking, so you are better prepared to navigate your financial success down the road. Here’s how you can navigate your long-term financial success by keeping tabs on your day-to-day accounting and financial status.

Using small business accounting services to focus on the day-to-day accounting of your business allows you to remain more forward-thinking with a longer-term, more strategic plan. Now is the time for you and your team to provide the level of service required to find new clients. More importantly, you need to meet the changing needs of your current customers. When you track in real-time, you can:

• Be more certain about business performance
• Identify where you can get more out of your business and find market opportunities
• Keep your business plan up to date so you can reach your goals
• Ensure you are moving in the direction planned
• Maintain better control over your business to meet market demands
• Take your company to the next level

If you can keep an eye on these details, you can create an improved, more effective business strategy. You can then continue to look for areas that need improvement while also leveraging opportunities as they arise.

Long-term financial success requires ongoing financial reviews including:

• Cash flow: Tracking cash flow helps you see  drastic differences in the money coming in and going out of the company. You can improve forecasts to have a better grasp on the money needed and make sure to meet that demand.  
• Working capital: As your business grows so too does the money needed to operate.  Track your working capital to determine if you need more before it’s too late.
• Cost base: You can make sure what you charge for products and services is covering your costs and provides the required profit. 
• Borrowing: If you’re tracking capital you can decide if borrowing would be beneficial or even possible. 
• Growth:  Are your business’s changing financial needs keeping up with your plans for growth? This is the question you should constantly be asking yourself if you want to meet your long-term financial success goals.

Working with an accounting coach is an effective way to set up and manage your financial reviews in real-time. You focus on the business, and they provide the financial information you need when you need it.

It’s difficult for most small business owners to find the time to maintain accurate accounting without some form of financial planning business coach or small business accounting services. With assistance, you can look at your accounting in real-time including:

• Bank Reconciliation to track growth and be more effective at cash management.
• Income Statements to highlight your regular profit/loss information and better manage operating costs. You can also find areas of over or under budgeting to remain more profitable.
• Balance Sheets for a snapshot and overview of your financial health at any time to spot trends of when money comes in and goes out and at what rate.
• General Ledger Management to help spot issues, find discrepancies and avoid inaccuracies.
• Cash Flow Tracking keeps the creation and use of cash front and center in your decision process.

Having someone to bring issues and opportunities to your attention allows you to remain proactive. You can adhere to your plan over the long-term when you can reflect on past performance.

When you have real-time numbers, you can look for ways to improve business efficiency. Some areas you can track include:

• Hours for staffing to ensure downtime is not overstaffed and peak hours meet demand
• Areas to invest to improve your service or product
• Reduce waste by tracking marketing success and ROI
• Measuring performance success
• Opportunity to invest in automation to save money in the long run

Basically, you need to be constantly answering these questions:

• Am I keeping a close enough eye on direct costs?
• How much is overhead and is it changing?
• What are my assets?
• How can I lower costs?
• Can I negotiate better deals with suppliers?
• Do I have enough or too many team members?
• Am I thinking in the long-term or living too reactively?
• Am I responding rapidly enough to meet demand?

When you answer these questions, you can continue to improve day-to-day performance and in turn, become more strategic with better-informed long-term views.

Our Business Compass Program was built to help entrepreneurs and small business owners gain Clarity, Confidence and Control of their financials to give them the strongest long-term success possible. 

Learn more about our Business Compass Program and how we at Tolbert CPA can help you build the habits and knowledge to interact with your financials all year long to create a stronger business. Schedule your free 30-minute Introductory Call today!

Visit our Entrepreneur’s Guide to Accounting to read more valuable articles like this one to establish the Clarity, Confidence and Control you need with your financials.