Clifford Benjamin, Tax Advisor, Daytona Beach, Florida

There’s more to running and growing a successful business than keeping the lights on, but many small business owners get so wrapped up in daily operations that they don’t have time to analyze their business. If business has slowed in the first month of 2020, here’s everything that you should evaluate before going into the new year.

Actual Versus Budget

If you didn’t get around to it when preparing your 2020 budget, you should look at your actual versus budget in the last year. A comparison of what you thought your cashflows would be to what they were can be enlightening.

Most businesses compare actual to budget monthly. This can help you identify cash flow gaps, such as when bills came due, but customers hadn’t paid their invoices. Use the information gleaned from this comparison to budget better for the coming year. It can also help with planning for collections activities, allocating employee resources, and future inventory needs.

Product Lines And Service Offerings

Dig deeper into your financial performance. Did a product line perform unexpectedly well? Did something consistently sell out? This could indicate that you need to adjust inventory reorder levels, or perhaps shift your business to carry more related products.

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