Bring on the Add-ons for Small Business Growth
So you’ve got a successful business and you’re making some money (nice one by the way), but you’re so busy trying to stay on top of everything, that you haven’t got the time to stop and think about how you can take your business to the next level. You might not even be sure what the most profitable areas of your business are or where you need to be focusing your attention.
Sound familiar? Well rest assured it happens more than you think. The pressures of managing a small business means you don’t always get to concentrate on the areas that you know you need to. We hear this a lot from our clients, which is why we are here to tell you that help is at hand. Xero has some truly awesome add-on solutions available, whatever your issue, the odds are they have something that will be able to help.
The New World
Hopefully in our previous two blogs we’ve sold you on the benefits of cloud accounting and specifically Xero. If you’ve missed these, check out our links on the right, we might be biased but we think they are worth a read.
Having bought a ticket and boarded the Xero train, we now want to show you the new world that awaits you. We know that some big companies would give their right arm for these tools designed specifically with small and medium sized businesses in mind. From experience, we can tell you the stuff that these add-ons do, could represent a weeks’ worth of work for several people.
If you think we’re getting carried away, trust us, there will be no going back after this. For The Matrix fans amongst you, it’s a bit of a red pill / blue pill moment.
We’re all friends here – tell us your problems
Let’s give you an example; you’re an independent brewery and you make the best IPA North of the M25, but you’re not actually too sure what your most profitable beer is. You probably know which one sells the most, but have you ever allocated your costs and revenue specifically per batch? No? I don’t blame you, that’s why you work with Xero and its add-ons who does this for you.
Maybe you run your own hairdressing salon with several chairs. Wouldn’t it be helpful to know which of your services or chairs generates you the most profit for the time taken? Perhaps with this knowledge you could then think about running a marketing campaign or offer promoting your highest margin service.
Conceivably, as a successful business owner you have your own website. Working with Xero and friends you can get access to some really useful information that you can then go and do something with. How are your visitors finding your site? What calls to action are working (and which aren’t)? What is your conversion rate?
Check yourself before you wreck yourself
Now you may consider talk about cash flow, profit & loss, or the balance sheet a subject matter less appetising than a sand sandwich, and you’re probably right, but your business ignores it at its peril.
You’ve probably heard the classic mantras ‘cash flow is king’ or ‘cash flow is the lifeblood of your business’? Turns out they are mantras because they are true. As a business owner you need to be all over your cash flow, but sometimes it can be really difficult to know where to start.
If your ambition is to grow, most likely this will require some form of capital investment either in the form of inventory or equipment. An understanding of cash flow becomes crucial in making a purchasing decision, even if you have the money in the bank right now, you need to ensure you can cover your costs going forward.
This is where Xero and its add-on partners can help. We’ve stated in a previous blog, that Xero doubles the survival rate of small businesses operating after 5 years of starting from 41%, (as an industry average) to 88%. That is huge!! And it’s facilitating good practice such as cash flow forecasting which really demonstrate how Xero is able to achieve this.
Times they are a-changin’
Whatever your business need is, and you might not even know you need it yet, there is an add-on solution out there that will be able to help you.
Need some help finding your way? Get in touch with Chilli via our contact form or on social media and we would love to help!
