By Brendan Taylor

I have a dream …

I have a dream that all of our clients have intimate knowledge of every aspect of their business at all times.

Pipe dream or possibility? Read on.

You may think that you are the master of your craft and your business, and you may well be right, in many senses at least.

But many business people do acknowledge that there are things “we know that we don’t know”. Things like:

When the next customer is going to walk through the door
When that machinery is going to breakdown
When interest rates are going up

But what about that even scarier concept. The idea that “we don’t know what we don’t know”.

That blissful ignorant state that we drift along in, doing the same thing day in day out, year in year out, hoping the same action will bring a better result.

Imagine this …

All the information you need is available to you at all times. And I’m talking about any business in any industry.

A coffee shop
Retail store
Electrician
Builder
Manufacturer
Farmer
Doctor
Accountant (yes, it may surprise you but we don’t know everything)

What if you knew everything about your customers - their buying habits, income, desire for your product, their birth date, family story and even their health.

What if you knew everything about your suppliers - their product range, new products on their radar, their financial position, their desire to sell up, personality, habits, and appetite for selling cheaper to you.

What if you knew everything about your employees - their happiness, health, plans, desire to move on and their motivations.

What if you knew everything about your business processes - the materials or products you use, the technology available, the wastage of time and materials, your optimum use of power.

What if you knew everything about your associates - the banks, their products and rates.

What about the ultimate use of your advertising dollars, what works and what doesn’t.

The value of information

If you had all of this information at hand at all times, how easy would your business decisions be? Of course you would make better decisions, because you’re not guessing.

Business decisions are so often made with a lack of knowledge, using gut feel, intuition, risk or poorly-sourced information.

The crazy thing is, all this information is out there. We just haven’t bothered to gather it, or save it in a re-usable manner.

Whether it is time, not bothering to get it, not keeping it, or no ability to record it in an orderly way, whatever the reason, we are not utilising this information enough.

The information generation

We are currently in the period known as the Information Generation. This is the digital future.

We read about Big Data and don’t understand. It’s simply the data generated by activity. It’s now so available due to our telecommunication, either on social media, internet, apps, TV and radio choice, and even shopping habit.

Now, I’m not saying we have to gather every bit of Big Data on every customer, supplier or employee. Small businesses don’t have the budgets and time of the big retailers and banks to gather that level of data and study habits of the consumer. I’m talking about gathering, recording, analysing, and understanding more about those direct parts of your business.

I would suggest the farming industry have been the best at this in the last 20 years. They have revolutionised their industry, especially broadacre cropping and livestock farmers.

They experiment, record, measure and analyse and then evolve using that information to get enormous production improvements. Soil health, moisture retention, plant health, pest control, genetic improvement and so much more.

This was absolutely necessary. Otherwise those industries would probably not exist if they were doing now what they were doing 20 years ago.

Almost every business is working with higher costs, lower sell prices, and lower profit margins.

We have limited resources. We have to get more out of what we’ve got.

So where is this going?

I believe we need to put more effort into gathering the important information. It will give us a greater and broader knowledge of our business.

In fact, I would go as far as to say, that if we don’t learn a lot more about our customers, suppliers, employees and business process, many of our businesses will not exist within 10 years.

We will be replaced by the younger generation businesses, run by the Millenials, who naturally collect this knowledge and use it.

I visualise some of you nodding in agreement, and some sceptical of my scaremongering.

Are you prepared to risk your business and future income?

If not, start gathering this information now.

You don’t know how, or where to start? We do. Call now!

Misconceptions of accountants

By Amy Sims

When meeting people for the first time do you ever hesitate when the person asks, "what do you do"? When telling people I am an accountant it can go one of two ways. It can be a real conversation killer or it can be the start of a lifelong friendship of free accounting advice. And then the questions start .... “I have an accounting question for you”. Perfect, just how I wanted to spend my evening, but do go on. “Can I claim my mobile phone if I am on call?” Or even better, “my mate said he gets a refund of $8k, how does he get that?”

Mind you, we accountants shouldn't complain. Our friends in the medical profession have it far worse. "Would you mind if I showed you this rash?" Awkward!

As we wind down to the end of another financial year we thought we would have a bit of a laugh with the top seven misconceptions of accountants.

Accountants love giving accounting/tax advice when out socialising. Now this may sound a little harsh but it is only because there is no such thing as a quick tax question. Often the answer will depend on a number of factors and then we will have to bore you with all the tax legislation.
Accountants are good at maths. When at a restaurant and you need to split the bill, who do you turn to? For future reference just grab your iPhone and use the calculator.
Accountants are busy in July. July is probably one of our quietest months and most employees are encouraged to go on holidays in July. Most businesses do not have to lodge their tax returns until May so generally we are busy all year round.
Accountants have their own tax affairs in order. Often we are so busy with our clients’ affairs that our own affairs get left until the last minute.
Accountants work for the ATO. Although it may appear that we are BFFs with the Tax Office, it is a bit of a love/hate relationship. Accounting is all about interpreting tax law and getting the best result for our clients.
Accountants only do tax returns. Yes, we have to lodge your tax returns each year but there is so much more we would like to talk to you about rather than just tax. If you have a burning question fire away.
Accountants are boring. Certainly not those that work at Lincolns anyway. Check out some of the things our team get up to on the Lincolns Facebook.

So the next time someone asks, "what do you do"? It might be a question that will certainly get the conversation started.

Information... Business Superfood