What are the five key questions you should be asking your bookkeeper every month?
Imagine you only had 30 mins a month to speak to your bookkeeper….. what would be the 5 critical questions that you should be asking?
In essence you may have longer conversations, but ultimately you want to have the key questions at the fore so that you can unravel where you are quickly and be able to spend your time doing what you are really good at – which may not be your books!
By establishing and asking these 5 questions you will have clarity on where you are, where you want to go and how to get there!
1) 1 Are my financial results good, bad or indifferent?
Why is this an important question? This question establishes how your business is tracking
What to do with the information:
If it is good: It gives you the ideal opportunity to identify what is good and to continue spending energy on those activities
If it is bad: This gives you the opportunity to quickly identify what is creating a bad result and make the relevant changes as soon as possible.
If it is indifferent: This may be that you are just breaking even which means you are likely not getting anywhere financially in a hurry, this is a great indicator that you need to take a deeper dive to transition that from indifferent to good!
2) What is driving my revenue?
Why is this an important question? By identifying where your revenue is generating from this will allow you to up the activities in the highest revenue generating activities – be that product, time and energy
What to do with the information:
By knowing WHAT is driving revenue allows you to identify where the revenue is coming from i.e. existing clients or new clients. It also allows you to identify if your pricing structure is effective i.e. do you need to increase or decrease pricing on any particular items, offerings or products. And finally allows you to consider your rate of conversion i.e. lots of incoming enquiries that do not convert may reflect back on your marketing strategy and your ideal client.
3) What’s my breakeven point?
Why is this an important question? Dependant on your business your breakeven can change month to month. I am sure you agree that running a business that is costing you money is not an ideal position to find yourself in! Without knowing your breakeven figure you will be guessing and hoping (hope is not a strategy!) that you are somehow making a profit!
What to do with the information: By knowing what your breakeven point IS allows you to plan the relevant business activities to ensure you definitely breakeven and of course make more to ensure you have a profitable business! Breakeven is defined as “Revenue = Expenses” This means profit is zero. It is essential that your sales fully cover your monthly costs and expenses before you move into the “profit zone”. With this information on hand you are able to go into the next month with clarity on what needs to be achieved.
4) Where can I save money?
Why is this an important question? If you are not able to increase your sales your next best move is to reduce and cut costs where you can without compromising on quality of course! Often your bookkeeper is able to take a holistic look at your business and identify line items that are unnecessarily adding you your cost / debt each month and where activities may be able to be systemized, streamlined and automated.
What to do with the information: Be open to suggestions on where you can streamline, systemize and automate activities within your business. Often the answer to this question will also enable you to identify expenses that may not be necessary.
5) What are my most profitable activities?
Why is this an important question? Knowledge is power!
What to do with the information: By knowing what your most profitable activities are allows you to spend more time on what IS generating profitability as opposed to what’s not such as sales and leads the involved to much work, not enough profit and low conversions.
Would you like to continue this conversation:
If you are wanting to work with a bookkeeper who is able to answer these 5 questions with ease (in 30 mins or less per month) so that you can identify where you are, where you need to go and create a plan to get you there, I invite you to reach out to me so we can have a chat and see how I can help you.
As a 10 min presentation: call it something “The Cheat Sheet of questions that you should be asking your bookkeeper each month”
AS a business owner you may be in a position where you have your monthly meeting with your bookkeeper – what does that look like?
Perhaps you chat about the birds, the bees and everything under the sun but not your actual BOOK!
Maybe you feel frustrated because you simply feel bamboozled by the facts and the figures that your bookkeeper gives you
Or maybe you avoid the meeting all together because “What you don’t know doesn’t hurt”!
Imagine being in a position where you are able to sit down with your bookkeeper, have a 3o min conversations and understand where you are, where you need to go and leave with a plan on how to get there!
Picture this – moving into the month ahead with quiet confidence knowing that the month ahead will be better than the month before
And Imagine being in a position where you are able to focus on the stuff you are really good at, the things you are truly passionate about knowing that your books are the least of your worries!
Do you agree that to go from here to here something has to change?
Today I would like to share the 5 key critical questions that you should be asking your bookkeeper every single month and more importantly to share Why it’s important and what to DO with the information.
On your hand out you will see 5 questions and I would like you to take a moment to tick the boxes of the questions you ask your bookkeeper each month – give them 30 seconds
Now in essence these 5 questions will help guide and navigate you and will certainly take the stress out of your books!
Lets go through each of these briefly and I would love for you to make notes on the worksheet so you have your one page “Cheat sheet” on hand the next time you engage with your bookkeeper 😉
In terms of time you will note there are 5 questions – today we are going to have a brief look at the top 3 and touch on the last 2
1) What’s my breakeven point?
Why is this an important question? Dependant on your business your breakeven can change month to month. I am sure you agree that running a business that is costing you money is not an ideal position to find yourself in! Without knowing your breakeven figure you will be guessing and hoping (hope is not a strategy!) that you are somehow making a profit!
What to do with the information: By knowing what your breakeven point IS allows you to plan the relevant business activities to ensure you definitely breakeven and of course make more to ensure you have a profitable business! Breakeven is defined as “Revenue = Expenses” This means profit is zero. It is essential that your sales fully cover your monthly costs and expenses before you move into the “profit zone”. With this information on hand you are able to go into the next month with clarity on what needs to be achieved.
2) Where can I save money?
Why is this an important question? If you are not able to increase your sales your next best move is to reduce and cut costs where you can without compromising on quality of course! Often your bookkeeper is able to take a holistic look at your business and identify line items that are unnecessarily adding you your cost / debt each month and where activities may be able to be systemized, streamlined and automated.
What to do with the information: Be open to suggestions on where you can streamline, systemize and automate activities within your business. Often the answer to this question will also enable you to identify expenses that may not be necessary.
3) What are my most profitable activities?
Why is this an important question? Knowledge is power!
What to do with the information: By knowing what your most profitable activities are allows you to spend more time on what IS generating profitability as opposed to what’s not such as sales and leads the involved to much work, not enough profit and low conversions.
4) Are my financial results good, bad or indifferent?
This question establishes how your business is tracking and what you can do differently to ensure it tracks the way you want it to!
5) What is driving my revenue?
By identifying where your revenue is generating from this will allow you to up the activities in the highest revenue generating activities – be that product, time and energy
I wish I had more time to delve deeper into these with you but this is just a starting point!
My ideal referral is small business owners who don’t want to be caught up in their books, want to know and understand how they are tracking and who are looking for a bookkeeper who is able to answer these questions effectively!
If I Invite you to reach out to me so we can have a chat and see how I can help you.
