Category: Efficiency

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Late payment? It’s just not good enough!

Most of my clients pay me by direct debit on a monthly contract but I recently took on a speaking engagement at short notice to help somebody out. It was a substantial fee but there wasn’t time to take a deposit so I squeezed in 4 days of preparation, rehearsal, travel, and delivery before I finally invoiced the full amount.

When the due date passed I sent a polite automated reminder from Xero and then rang the organiser in case there was a problem with the invoice. Just as well because it turned out the bookkeeper had paid the wrong person!

Mistakes happen and the other supplier who received my payment had immediately notified my customer. But the company hadn’t bothered to contact me to explain or to offer any apology.

This made me ‘a bit grumpy’ but I got even grumpier when I had to keep chasing each week. This was definitely not a business that I wanted to work with again. I always pay my own suppliers promptly as they are usually small businesses like mine.

So, as the law allows, I raised an invoice for interest on late payment of 8% over base rate plus £70 debt collection charge. Eventually the original invoice was paid and, after further chasing, the penalty invoices were paid too.

Even if people know that they are entitled to claim this interest and debt collection charge not many people actually bother. And many cancel the interest once the main invoice is paid. Why?

It is important to ensure that small businesses are paid promptly and part of that is making it more painful for the defaulters than for the unpaid victims. Let’s all make sure that we charge interest and collection fees so that we gradually get larger businesses to comply with their agreed payment terms.

Details of your payment rights are here.

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Paperless at last!

Finally we’re a 100% paperless office. A nice man came and took all my archives for bulk shredding yesterday. I’m now giving away so much stationery that I’ve accumulated over the years of three businesses.

Top tip with going paperless is to start TODAY as the old stuff will work its way out in 6 years and you can get it all securely shredded in bulk as we did. We didn’t waste time and money scanning paper just to archive it. The fact that we’ve never looked at them since shows that this was the right decision.

We scan anything coming in and save it in the appropriate client or admin file. We sign everything online and have Signable for anything that doesn’t get signed through our accounts/tax software.

I have no printer. In an emergency I can take a USB to my local post office and pay 50p per sheet. (It makes me laugh that ICAEW needed to approve my letterhead before granting my practising certificate.)

What’s holding you back from going paperless? Or have you already done it?

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How do you make big decisions?

Some people make quick decisions and some people prefer to take their time. Some people make good decisions and others not so good. In my experience the amount of time taken to reach a decision doesn’t show much correlation with the quality of the decision.

When faced with big decisions what do you do?

I usually make a list of pros and cons to be sure that I’ve considered everything and then discover that the length of each list reflects my subconscious preference. So, for me, this is a mixture of a head and also a heart decision.

I can work out any numbers but, like most accountants, I can usually make those numbers support my decision by tweaking the assumptions. This is why I don’t believe it’s worth spending too much time on projections because I can control the inputs to get the results I want. On paper at least. (It is still worth doing rough projections to ensure that you’re not way off target)

When it comes to business decisions I compare the possible outcomes with my initial business objectives to see which will get me closer to my goal. This has proved to be quite reliable in the past.

Another way is to spend 24 hours imagining that you’ve taken option A. This helps you to clarify the implications of that choice as well as to understand how you are likely to feel. Then spend 24 hours imagining that you’ve taken the alternative. This gives insight into which choice will make you happier.

How do you make decisions? Logically or following your gut instinct?

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Why Monday morning made me sad

I recently decided to make a concerted effort to stay on top of my emails. Not an Inbox Zero exercise where you just hide them in different folders (I tried it and out of sight is definitely out of mind for me) but actually dealing with them. As part of this exercise, I started measuring how many emails I have in my inbox when I log on in the morning and how many I have at the end of the day. Of course more emails come in throughout the day too but I don’t currently measure these.

It is quite alarming how many emails come in outside of conventional office hours!

Some of these are automated or from clients and colleagues in different time zones or people who, like me, choose to work odd hours but most are not.

And far too many people were working over the weekend so my inbox was jammed when I logged on on Monday morning.

If you’re one of these people and you’re working through necessity rather than choice then I really wish that we could talk. I’ve always run my businesses on an average of 25 hours per week and it breaks my heart to see people working long hours and missing out on family or personal time when I know I can help them.

We have all sorts of options from individual coaching to group coaching and online courses. If you’re really strapped for cash then I run free webinars and write books but frankly, most people don’t take action without a coach of some sort to motivate/nag them.

Have a look at hudsonbusiness.co.uk to see what we have available for accountants/bookkeepers and other business owners and make your business work for you in 2023.

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I am strong but I am tired

It happens to most of us at some point. November seems to be a busy month for me these days and I’m getting used to it. In the same way that December was busy when I ran a bigger accountancy practice alongside having to do all the family and school Christmas stuff. Many accountants extend this busy period into January too.

There may be other busy periods in your life due to business or home peaks. If you know they will only last for a short period then it is okay to power on through. (It is NOT okay if busyness is the norm!)

It is okay to feel tired. It is not a weakness. So here are a few tips to get through busy periods. Not all of them will be possible but hopefully one or two will help you.

1. Plan ahead and clear the decks as much as possible beforehand
2. Update your systems and processes in the quiet periods to make your busy period as easy as possible. This is why we run two strategic planning days in the new year. January for business owners and February for accountants (Check out our website or reply to this email for more info)
3. Learn to say “no”. If it doesn’t have to be done in your busy period then say “no” or “later”.
4. Balance your whole load. If you are having a busy period at work then be gentle with yourself at home. Your family can survive on oven meals for a short period and they may even see it as a bit of a treat. Your housework will also wait for you or get your kids to help out (it’s probably better than nothing and will train them for later life)
5. Ask for help. This may be from family, friends or employing extra help.
6. Buy extra time. I have two wonderful cleaners who work wonders on my home once a week so that I am free to get on with my work or to do something for me.
7. Try to take some rest and time for yourself. Even in your busy periods try to take at least one day off for you each week. And remember that working late will leave you too tired to work productively the next day so better to finish a bit earlier and get a good night’s sleep.
8. Remember to eat, sleep, hydrate and exercise to keep yourself as strong as possible.
9. Find a way to relax quickly. What are the quick, simple pleasures in your life? I like a bubble bath or a walk by the sea or a massage (anyone else get tense shoulders hunching over their desk?). None of these need to take much longer than 30-60 mins but they make a world of difference.

Please feel free to send me any other tips for this list.
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Rules are there for a reason

Did you hear that a lot in your school days? Even though most of the rules seemed a bit, well, stupid? I certainly did!

A few weeks ago, I broke one of my own rules. It was a good rule and there to protect me, but I was doing somebody a favour to help them out. (You’ve probably made the same excuses yourself)

A training company was looking for a speaker at short notice and a colleague recommended me. There was a lot of backwards and forwards to see if I was a good fit which meant that time was even tighter by the time it was all agreed. And then they sent over their terms and conditions for signature which were different from my standard speaking terms in one main respect. There was no up-front payment.

As most of you aren’t professional speakers, I’d better explain that, for a speaking assignment like this, I would spend 2 days learning the material (I usually spend a similar amount of time writing my own) and rehearsing so that everything is flawless without looking over-rehearsed. I spent a day travelling and a day delivering the content and incurred related expenses. 4 days work plus travel and hotel costs.

Event organisers may charge attendees up-front, but they prefer to pay their speakers after the event (Although far too many expect speakers to work for ‘exposure’, but that’s another problem). Event organisers often cancel at short notice if they don’t get enough people signed up which can leave speakers with wasted time and prebooked travel costs. This is simply solved by charging a deposit at the time of booking.

As everything was done at short notice to help out the new client there wasn’t time to negotiate a deposit.

So, I did ALL the work and incurred all the costs before invoicing them at the earliest possible moment and guess what?

They didn’t pay on their agreed date! And they didn’t even bother to let me know why not!

Anyway, several weeks later and after wasting far too much time chasing, I finally got paid.

But I won’t be making that mistake again.

Please learn from my mistakes and get paid up front where possible. At Minerva Accountants our annual fee is all paid by direct debit before the year end. Have a look at your terms and conditions and see if they could be tighter.

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How to train your clients

I see lots of people complaining or rolling their eyes at the behaviour of certain ‘vampire’ clients that suck far more time and resources than the average client. But what can you do?

  1. Don’t take them on in the first place. Learn to recognise them and say no right from the outset. Unless you’re a lawyer or a licensed taxi driver then you are not obliged to take on every single client who comes to you (and even these have ways of turning down work)
  2. Onboard well with a clear scope of work. Make sure that your onboarding process includes managing your clients’ expectations. Ensure that everything is set up well from the start and that clients know your working hours and who deals with what. For instance, we have a ‘reasonable use’ clause on our telephone support. If we can’t answer something straight away on the phone because it is complex or requires detailed calculations then this is an additional charge.
  3. Service level agreements. Be clear on your turnaround times for answering questions or delivering your finished project/product/services. We aim to respond to queries by next working day and ask clients to reply within 1 week. We prepare year end accounts within 8 weeks and ask clients to send information within 8 weeks of the year end.
  4. Automate reminders in your systems so that you don’t hold up starting work through lack of information.
  5. Charging more is an option but sometimes this just encourages clients to feel entitled to more of your time or to send things closer to deadlines.
  6. If all else fails ditch the client. There are plenty of good clients out there waiting to work with us.

Remember that it is your business and you get to choose who you work with.

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Can I ‘just’ pick your brain?

How often do you get asked this? People you barely know, if at all, wanting to take some of your valuable time and expertise in exchange for a coffee or less.

There are some people whom I’m happy to say “yes” to due to close relationships or help that they’ve given to me or others in the past. There are some people who only ever take and, for these, it’s a straight “no”. But, for most people, I’d love to help but I don’t have the time in between earning a living and my own community commitments.

So how can you help people without giving up too much of your precious earning time or offering discounts on your core products and services?

I do this through writing books, running courses and group coaching sessions which are all cheaper than my individual coaching. But even this is too expensive for some so I write these Tips and provide free webinars. We run 6 Better Business webinars per year for accountants and bookkeepers and 12 Minerva Money Matter webinars per year for other business owners.

As a member of ICAEW or a local accountant or business woman I’m often asked to speak in schools and for other local groups. Lots of people helped me when I started out so I’m happy to do this. For those in even greater need we give a percentage of our turnover to charity each year.

How can you give back to others? How can you have the greatest impact on most people through one to many support? Or would you prefer to sponsor an individual? Perhaps you already do something like this? Let me know how you prefer to support your local community or preferred charity.

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Trust the process

You’ve probably been there. Business is quieter than usual and you don’t know why.

When you’ve been running your business for a few years you get used to this and know that doing the right things will produce the right results but sometimes you doubt yourself or your process.

Even after this long in business I still have these wobbles.

October has been quiet for me with fewer enquiries than usual and even fewer suitable enquiries. I’ve given away a lot of free advice or referred them to another coach or accountant who was more suited to their needs.

In the background I (and my wonderful PA) continued to do the usual marketing and to prepare the new 30 day start up course for accountants and bookkeepers.

But it was still too quiet for my liking.

And then the flood gates opened, and I’ve been busy this week with enquiries for coaching, courses, and accountancy services. And a big consultancy lead that had gone quiet suddenly turned into a signed contract overnight. And now I’m wondering how I’m going to fit in all the extra work.

Such is the roller coaster of running your own business. Sometimes you just have to trust the process. Doing the right things will produce the right results.

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Are you working too hard?

With Summer holidays over and Winter drawing in I’m seeing more exhausted business owners. Although there may be particular pressures on accountants facing tax return season everybody is affected to some extent by the cost of living crisis.

Here are a few things that you can do to make your business run more smoothly so that you can take more time for yourself.

  • Software – invest in software that will free up time for you and your team. If you set it up properly it will also be less prone to mistakes than tired human beings.
  • Recruit – invest in people to share the workload
  • Training – if it’s hard to recruit at the right level then invest in training and ‘grow your own’ team who will do things your way right from the beginning. Invest in training for you and your team to help you to work more efficiently.
  • Business coach – invest in a business coach so that you have an external view on how to improve your business whether that is profitability or work-life balance. As well as accountability to help you to put all that reading and course into effect.
  • Increase your prices – we run regular (free) webinars on how and why to do this so I won’t explain this here but please contact me if you’d like more information on our next event.
  • Sack poor clients – whether you define that as unprofitable or vampire clients that suck your time your life will be much happier and profitable without them. You’ll either have more time for yourself or to take on more profitable and enjoyable work.
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