Aurora Accounting & Business Services

11/07/2016

Celebrating our 13th year in business this month. We would like to thank all of our clients, many of whom have been with us for more than 10 years. As we continue on our journey, we are very interested in hearing from those who may become our future clients. In the mean time see what our clients have to say about why they have been with us for so long: http://www.auroragroup.ie/testimonials/

04/07/2016

Aurora SME Management Procast – Episode One

Avoid Getting Lost in the Business

One of my favourite business expressions is “you cannot win a war fighting in the trenches”

It explains so well the concept we are talking about. We find that small business owners get lost in the business, and they forget to work on their business. So how do we avoid this?

Firstly, understand our purpose. This is the why –
“why are we setting up and why will we win in business?”
“why will people buy our services and / or products?”

It is from this that we develop our business model.

If starting up, this is one of the most important things to do.
It is imperative that our purpose is understood with clarity and written down.
You will need to invest time into this exercise – it is one of the most important things you will do – so don’t skip it.
It is very important that we re-visit this document regularly as a constant reminder of our purpose.
– This will keep us focused
– It will lead to the development of our purpose
– It is used to develop our annual planning process

This is an exercise that we must ensure we re-visit regularly, so the good news is – it’s never too late to start.

This leads me nicely to second “Don’t forget to Work ON our business. This is the annual planning process, and another business expression, although a bit of a cliché: “failing to plan, is planning to fail”

This is really a subset of our purpose. Its objective is to explain how we plan to move our business towards its purpose in the coming twelve month period. It sets out our sales volume targets, our sales price targets, and understands the costs associated with these sales.
This is an involved process – a team event. It is co-ordinated by the managing director and is ultimately his responsibility, however it cannot be his/her sole project. The process needs a wider perspective than one person. Ideas need to be challenged, thoughts need to be developed.

The annual operational & financial plan will provide direction, a plan to assess performance against, and a benchmark to set corrective action.

Aurora Accounting & Business Services’ clients engage in a rigorous annual financial planning process. Our view is if big companies value this process and employ significant resources into it then so should we. Our client’s agree. And our clients have enjoyed the benefits of planning – setting our goals and measuring performance and ultimately achieving our business goals.

Aurora SME Management Procast is a podcast series aimed at entrepreneurs and SMEs. Each Procast tackles a different aspect of starting your own business - how to plan, how to manage and how to succeed

04/07/2016

Understanding the Aurora Difference

Let’s be honest, while most businesses know they need accounts, it is generally seen as a necessary evil. Few business owners recognise the power of the information at their fingertips and how, if properly used, they can make a positive contribution to the business, particularly the profits.
If we’re to be completely honest, most clients only contact their accountant when there’s a problem – revenue are sending letters or they have cash-flow issues etc. At Aurora, our clients see these issues coming long before they materialize. This is only achieved through the use of the accounts information they ALREADY have at their disposal.

So what do we do with this information?

Our clients get monthly management accounts. While most accountants see this as their job complete this is only our starting point. Challenging our clients, ‘we’ use this information:

Were we profitable this month?

How long does it take to collect our money & why does it take so long? (Debtors days)

Did we hit our sales target or do we even have a sales target that was established as part of a planning process?

What is our (reconciled = actual) bank position at the end of last month and what is it going to be at the end of this month?

What is our labour to sales, is it within industry norms and how does it compare to previous months/years?

While this may not be true in all cases, more often than not these questions cannot be answered. We often find that business owners spend more time managing the operations and not the business. We see our role as an extension of the management team – we take the stress of the accounting function so as you can get on with things.