About now you will have finalised your financial figures for the 2007-08 period. Have you thought about running some analysis against these figures to check your progress?

(If you are a new business, consider running these assessments on the quarters you have been in business).

This is my business health checklist for the end of each financial year:

1) Looking at the sales income, total expenses and net profit figures against the previous year. I am looking for increase in sales income and net profit, and hopefully a decrease in expenses. If not, look for reasons why so you can put checks in place for this coming year.

2) Who are my top 10 clients? Compare this list for names and value against previous financial year list – are there positive changes in this list?

3) Break Even Analysis. If you haven’t done this before, talk to your accountant to help you with this calculation. This is an indicative figure of how much the business needs to sell before you start to earn profit.

4) Retention of team members. Whether casual or permanent team members, this is an important indicator to your business.

5) Review the top five expenses to see if I can do anything about them. Note: I have often found these to include my telecommunications expenses so I look at my contracts.

I also check things like:
(a) my superannuation contribution (your accountant will assist you with why this is important)
(b) the hours that I have worked in the business.

I hope you have had successful year and I look forward to working with you in 2008/09.