RS Accountants

How do your profits compare to your competitors?

by Russell Smith | Feb 20, 2012 | General

When I am going through the business numbers with a client and get to the profit figure, I am often asked whether the profit is good or bad. When a company is appraising its profit performance, the first number to compare the profit figure with is the budget (if there...

How to get more cash?

by Russell Smith | Feb 19, 2012 | General

Cash is the lifeblood of a business, it is the oxygen that makes everything else in the business possible. A business with no cash not only restricts growth but it saps time and energy away from key people in the organisation. A business with no cash ends up being one...

Should your whole team see the profit your company makes?

by Russell Smith | Feb 19, 2012 | General

Here’s a tricky question for you this Saturday evening! Should the whole team in your business see the company management accounts i.e. should they see how much profit is made? I’ve heard many answers on this, so I’ll try to give a balanced,...

One quick and easy thing to do to make your business numbers increase

by Russell Smith | Feb 17, 2012 | General

Here is a quick tip to help increase your numbers in your business. First of all, pick a number that you want to increase. It could be sales, sales leads, conversion rates, repeat business, number of transactions per customer, profit before tax. It could even be a...

Here’s another important tip for always giving a great impression and why Billabong shorts are not good for a chartered accountant

by Russell Smith | Feb 17, 2012 | General

I was having a conversation with a team member the other day about first impressions. He was saying that it was ‘out of order’ for anybody to judge anybody else on how they dressed, what car they drove etc. He may have a point but the fact is, in business,...

The 5 essential things that you MUST, MUST, MUST do when starting a business (that nobody has told you!)

by Russell Smith | Feb 15, 2012 | General

Okay, this blog goes out to all the start-ups – the 5 essentials things are….. 1. Get great at sales and marketing Don’t listen to what anybody tells you, your business will be a success if you are great at sales and marketing. Whilst you absolutely...

What are you here for?

by Russell Smith | Feb 14, 2012 | General

I remember the first time I sat with my two other directors and asked the question ‘What are we here for?’ The answer of ‘we are a firm of chartered accountants’ did not really convey what we were or what we aspired to be. That’s who we...

Should I have paid someone to decorate my bedroom?

by Russell Smith | Feb 12, 2012 | General

I’ve just spent 4 hours glossing the skirting in my bedroom to cap off a week’s ‘holiday’ decorating. It has been a reasonably enjoyable day (I was in the ‘gloss-zone’) and it had a good evening, I was invited to take part in an...

How to write a system note

by Russell Smith | Feb 10, 2012 | General

Great businesses have great people running great systems, but great systems don’t happen overnight. They can take months to be written, ironed out and bedded in to the fabric of the day-to-day running of a business. Every great system has to be written down, if...

Where do your profits come from?

by Russell Smith | Feb 8, 2012 | General

When I look at a company’s profit and loss account the way my brain works is that I immediately look to the net profit figure, then to the sales figure and calculate the net profit margin. I would then look at the gross profit (the profit after direct expenses)...