Tag: Cashflow

When business partners launch a new company, all of their attention and energy goes into getting the new venture on its feet. However, it’s not long before questions and difficulties arise over disparate workloads, responsibilities and remuneration. Darren Bourke offers some advice on how to keep all parties walking in the same direction.

Running a small business inevitably means becoming a jack of all trades, most notably of which is ‘doing the books’. This in turn requires getting to grips with tricky accounting packages, an understanding of spreadsheets and becoming conversant with accounting jargon. The result is waving goodbye to your evenings, weekends and regular sleep.

Starting the new year with an optimistic outlook is one thing. To remain confident throughout the rest of the year requires setting a series of short-term measurable goals that you celebrate as each is achieved.

Starting the new year with an optimistic outlook is one thing. To remain confident throughout the rest of the year requires setting a series of short-term measurable goals that you celebrate as each is achieved.

The first thing you need to do in order to take the amazing idea in your head and turn it into a fully-fledged company is to raise capital, and the first piece of advice you’ll get is to create a business plan and a forecast. If that sounds like an awful lot of hard work, you're right. If you don’t even know where your next pay cheque is coming from, how can you be expected to have foresight years ahead on the performance of a company that exists only in thin air? It also sounds suspiciously like a budget -- something you thought you’d left behind in the corporate world.

The first thing you need to do in order to take the amazing idea in your head and turn it into a fully-fledged company is to raise capital, and the first piece of advice you’ll get is to create a business plan and a forecast. If that sounds like an awful lot of hard work, you're right. If you don’t even know where your next pay cheque is coming from, how can you be expected to have foresight years ahead on the performance of a company that exists only in thin air? It also sounds suspiciously like a budget -- something you thought you’d left behind in the corporate world.

The New Year is a great time to take stock and prepare your business to gear up for a new operating environment. Westpac’s Sian Lewis provides the following New Year’s resolutions to kick-start your business for the year ahead…

During this two hour seminar and networking event, attendees will learn from five of Australia’s leading experts on venture capital and business development - real investors, currently seeking investment opportunities, and successful entrepreneurs, who have ‘been there’ and secured private funding for their growing companies.

The December and January period is normally a slow time for small-to-medium sized businesses, with most customers on holidays, suppliers operating on skeleton staff and budgets on hold. The Interface Financial Group’s David Hechter offers his top five tips for surviving the Christmas slowdown.

March is consistently the worst month of the year for company insolvencies. Why? Because businesses don’t plan for the inevitable drop in cashflow over the holiday period. Tim Lea offers some great advice on how to keep all the balls in the air while you and your customers are enjoying the summer break.

It is generally thought that a soaring Aussie dollar is terrible for exporters. However, as Austrade's Chief Economist Tim Harcourt reveals, there are two sides to every coin.

Firstly, let's clear up some confusion. Commercialisation Australia is not going to pay for your marketing campaign, help you with advertising or fund you to break into your desired market. CA will help you up to the point that you are ready to go commercial. That is, it will help with pre-commercialisation.

The tangle of red tape is shortly about to be made much simpler and more seamless as a result of an initiative led by the Australian Treasury called 'Standard Business Reporting', which will be available from 1 July, 2010.

Okay, maybe that's a tad on the dramatic side. What I hate is this faffing around with logos as an excuse for not doing other, real, important stuff with your business.

The news yesterday that the Federal Government has unveiled details of its $196 million Commercialisation Australia (CA) initiative has been welcomed by many entrepreneurs and innovation consultants. These same intended beneficiaries might also be forgiven for wondering whether it is an improvement on the $1 billion Commercial Ready Scheme it is designed to replace.

The news yesterday that the Federal Government has unveiled details of its $196 million Commercialisation Australia (CA) initiative has been welcomed by many entrepreneurs and innovation consultants. These same intended beneficiaries might also be forgiven for wondering whether it is an improvement on the $1 billion Commercial Ready Scheme it is designed to replace.

The US remains the largest developed market in the world and a big influence on other global markets. It remains important for any company with global ambitions. The current economic environment does not do a lot to encourage Australian firms to focus on the US. However, innovative new models and technology have dramatically changed the cost of entering and developing the US market. Australian firms can now do much of the early market development work without having to hire a US-based team.

If you ain't the Big Cheese, it's likely you think (at least occasionally) that you could run the company better. So get a team together and make it happen! Here are eights steps to buying out your boss and seizing the reins.

When I started my business I knew it had to grow from a foundation of personal contact and referrals. To do this people said I had to network. This scared the crap out of me.

If you're going to give something away, you need to know what the value of it is and what your ROI is. Too many people are caught up in this 'giving stuff away for free and hoping money happens later' thing. I'm guessing that's because they're afraid of selling.