Confident Cashflows helps businesses improve productivity through cash flow management.
As a solo-preneur, productivity is vital to the long-term viability of Tracey Loubser’s business, Confident Cashflows.
Loubser says maximising her own personal productivity as well as the productivity of the business allows her to invest her time in things that will drive business growth.
“If I don’t constantly work at streamlining my systems and processes and continually be productive, I will never get to do the things that are vital to my business growth,” she says.
“Productivity within my business means I have time available to support my clients as and when they need me – more analysis, detailed forecasting when they are investigating price or business model changes and any other support to help them find better and more profitable ways of making and keeping more money in their business.”
Loubser feels strongly that the majority of business failures occur from lack of financial understanding on the part of the business owner.
That’s why she launched Confident Cashflows in 2009, a business-to-business financial management services provider that helps fill the gap between information bookkeepers generate and tax compliant reporting accountants provide for their clients.
She says improving productivity is not just a focus for her own business, but a key part of the service she provides to her clients.
“Time equates to money, especially when the labour element of a business is generally the biggest chunk of [the business owner’s] spending,” she says.
“Productivity means efficiency and efficiency means profit. The crux of improving cash flow is making as much profit as possible on each area of the business, through first finding the money leaks in a business and secondly improving the time it takes to deliver that product or service.”
Loubser relies on software to drive productivity in her business, including Infusionsoft for marketing, Trello for her to-do list, mavenlink for internal communication and Calxa for small business reporting. Technology has also helped ensure she gets paid on time, improving her own cash flow management.
“One of the biggest lessons I learnt early in my business is ‘be in control of getting paid by your clients’,” she says.
“I don’t work on a ‘pay on presentation of invoice’ model. My clients pay via their credit card debits using Eway and a merchant facility and because I run a fixed price model it gets charged to their credit card. That way I never waste time following up on unpaid accounts.”
However, she acknowledges that increasing automation in the accounting industry poses a threat to both her own business and that of her clients.
“Over the past five to 10 years we have gone from accounting software being mostly on your desktop or local network, with each transaction being captured one by one – to now most software used by small businesses being online or in the cloud, able to be accessed anywhere any time, with bank feeds that automate the capturing of data a lot easier and more time efficiently,” she says.
“This is a huge area of concern in the accounting industry, as it’s taking away the need for some of the work accountants do.”
“These software packages are also getting really smart in the analysis of past data. Savvy business owners can now analyse their past performance against what they planned without the need for any special software packages, which are normally only accessible by accountants.”
Loubser says this puts some pressure on the industry in which she operates.
But despite a raft of new information being available to business owners through their software, she believes the business advisory or ‘financial performance consulting’ area has some key competitive advantages – in particular the fact that small business owners often don’t analyse the information available to them, or even review it to discuss their financial performance.
“There’s always hype out there about systems and software, it’s certainly a benefit,” she says.
The businesses that are failing are businesses that dont understand how their business works financially and aren’t able to act fast enough.
“Yes, the reporting and the software is there and giving them information, the challenge is not that it’s not available – it is available – the challenge is that they’re not looking at it.”
This can be found : https://www.bankwest.com.au/business/media-centre/productivity/bankwest-future-of-business-2017-productivity-report-1292552930067?promocode=edm2841&cid=edm2841 (In the report – on page 11 + 12)
In 2012, Loubser launched Confident Cashflows PLUS – a second service offering for public practice accountants including workshops and coaching programs.
The training is based on her 7 Step ‘Profit Boosting System’, which allows her to prepare financial information “in a productive way” and spend more time analysing the business to find effective ways to improve profit.
“Accountants are under increasing pressure from clients and the industry to provide more than a tax/BAS compliance service,” she says.
“I help them do that through my training. They can on-sell this financial support to their clients, and improve both the accounting practices’ and their clients’ profitability and cash flow.”
Using the 7 Step process, one client experienced improved financial performance over a short period such as;
Increased turnover by 37%.
Increased gross profit by 7% – with an increase in staff.
Increased net profit by 64% during the period compared to the previous 12 months.
Reduced debt by 52% in 12 months – with more staff and maintaining personal drawings from the business.
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