The holidays are a busy time of year for everyone, including small businesses. While it can feel like there’s a whole lot todo just to stay afloat with your normal business operations, it’s also a time of year where you can take certain accounting steps to make sure your operations are staying sustainable and efficient.
Here’s a quick look at five financial tips for you to take into consideration for this holiday season.
• Track all sales and expenses: With everything moving so quickly during the holiday season it can be easy to fall behind on your bookkeeping. However, you cannot afford to get behind with your books. Stay up to date with all of your daily business tasks so you’re logging all sales, expenses and other financial data, giving you accurate financial data to work with. Working with an outsourced bookkeeper can help you stay up to date with these important tasks while you focus on other important areas of your business.
• Track your inventory: It’s important you stay on top of inventory management so you can ensure you’re able to deliver your customers exactly what they want. This is especially important during the holiday season when there is a greater sense of urgency in shoppers and when you’re likely to see more sales. Tracking your inventory and sales this year will also help you gauge what to expect for future holiday seasons.
• Minimize back end work: Again, this becomes much easier if you have a third-party professional available who can handle some of your back-end tasks, as well as if you have automation technologies you can rely on. But in general, you should try to minimize how much time you’re spending on back-end work during the holidays so you can keep your focus on the customer during the holiday season (and beyond, really).
• Consider your marketing: If there’s ever a time to invest in marketing, it’s during the holiday season when people are spending more money. Promote your products and services on social media, and get involved in conversations with customers and followers. Boost your email marketing campaigns to make sure people are aware of deals you have running and to deliver those deals directly to their inboxes.
• Think about what you can do better next season: In general, the holiday season is much more likely to go smoothly if you have been preparing for it for weeks or months. As you go through this holiday season, think about the steps you took to prepare, what’s gone well and what hasn’t gone well, and how you can adjust for next year. Brainstorming for next year while the experience is still fresh is extremely beneficial, and you can review your notes and data for this year when getting started for your next year’s holiday preparations.
From us here at MCG Solutions, happy holidays to one and all!