Advisory Accountant or Compliance Partner
Your accountant should be telling you things you did not know to ask.
If every conversation is reactive like you have a problem, they help you fix it, you are getting compliance, not advice.
Cash Flow Forecast: Looking forward
If there is one financial tool that I would give every South African SME owner above all others, it is not a better income statement. It is not a more detailed budget. It is a cash flow forecast. A cash flow forecast is simply a forward-looking view of what money is coming into your business […]
Why performance management starts with your balance sheet
Most South African SME owners think about performance in terms of revenue. Did we hit our sales target this month? Are we growing year on year? Is the business busier than it was last year? Revenue is a starting point, although it is only one dimension of business performance. A business can grow its revenue […]
The Xero Dashboard. Start here always
Most Xero users open the platform to do a specific task — send an invoice, capture a bill, run a report — and then close it again. The dashboard, which is the first thing you see every time you log in, gets glanced at and scrolled past. That is a missed opportunity. The Xero dashboard […]
Hidden Costs – how they are killing your business
Hidden costs accumulate quietly in the background, month after month, never large enough to trigger alarm in any individual month, increases often blown off as inflation or the usual annual increase.
Financial Goals: How to do it correctly
Every January or at least at the start of a new financial year, South African business owners and business owners around the world, sit down and write goals. Review revenue targets. Predict growth percentages. Explore new market entries. Start the search for staff to hire. Consider new systems to build. But because goal setting without […]
An Excel Spreadsheet or Xero
I have this conversation more often than you might expect. A business owner, usually one who has been running for two or three years, tells me they are managing their finances in Excel. They, or someone they know personally, have built a reasonably clever spreadsheet. It tracks their income, their expenses, maybe their invoices. They […]
The must do 21-question business check-up
I have introduced the PCP Method — the Purpose, Clarity, Performance framework I use with clients we work with. I described how the method works and why it matters. Now I want to give you something practical: a way to assess where your own business sits across all three pillars right now. This 21-question business […]
What is the PCP Method?
Let me ask you a question that most accountants never ask their clients. What is your business actually for? Not what does it do. Not what does it sell. But what is it for — at its core, in the way that gets you out of bed in the morning and keeps you going when […]
Why most South African SMEs run out of cash before they run out of customers
I want to start with a story that I have heard more times than I care to count. A business owner comes to me — frustrated, exhausted and confused. Their order book is full. Their phone is ringing. Clients are happy. On the surface, everything looks like success. But underneath it all, there is a […]