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.
What your management accounts is really telling you — and how to use it
Disturbing trend Most South African business owners receive their monthly reports or management accounts, received from their accountant, glance at the bottom line number and move on. If it is a profit, they feel relieved. If it is a loss, they feel anxious. Either way, they rarely dig deeper. This is an expensive habit. What […]
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 […]
A plain-language guide to reading your profit and loss statement
There is a document that your accountant prepares for you every year — possibly every month — that has the power to transform the way you run your business. It tells you whether you are actually making money. It tells you where your costs are going. It tells you whether your business model is working. […]
Business Purpose, the decision Filter
Every business owner I have ever worked with could tell me what their business does. Very few could tell me — clearly, honestly and without hesitation — why it exists. These sound like the same question. They are not. What your business does is a description of your activity. Why it exists is a statement […]
How Xero gives YOU real-time control of YOUR finances
When I sit down with a new client for the first time, I always ask the same question: how do you currently know how your business is doing? The answers vary, but most of them follow a familiar pattern. None of these approaches give you what you actually need: accurate, real-time financial information that you […]
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 […]