The Successes and not so Bright Spots of the Year
This time of year is often a favorite for many who look forward to starting anew and looking back at the accomplishments over the last year. As your children may be counting down the days until that morning of anticipation and wonder, we in the accounting profession have a chance to take a step back and look over the year that we just had.For some out there, it’s been a year to remember with fantastic growth in the amount of clients they have contracted with; increased their billable hours to a point where “living comfortably” is a good description of their current state. The state of their business is flourishing and everything is clicking on all cylinders like a finely tuned engine chugging along nicely.For others it was a year of trial and error, where you had some successes, getting that larger client, finding that new way of doing things that shortened the time you spent on this or that particular task. But it was also full of mistakes, and of errors that were caused by inexperience, or simply from not knowing what to do. Mistakes that inevitably took away from the company’s bottom line and resulted in losing a client or two along the way.Yet still for others this was a trying year, one that would be eligible for a “mulligan” if it were a round of golf. Although the effort was made, things and accounts just didn’t seem to come your way. It has now become very clear that drawing on additional Accounting and Bookkeeping experience is what is needed. This do-over year was full of pratfalls and blunders that bring the toughest to their knees and yet you survived it, ready for a new year.However this last year was for you, this next year is a year of anticipation and wonder. You can make a great situation greater, a good thing much better and turn around the bad results into the learning experiences that they were and incorporate those lessons for this next upcoming season.
Here are a few things that help every company to take stock of how their year went.
- List the changes that happened to the practice of last year from the year previous
- Additions or subtractions of clients, employees, services offered, and industries entered.
- Any additions or subtractions of office equipment or capabilities of doing business.
- As all of us are inclined to do, get down to the dollars and cents of what happened in the year.
- When you were more profitable than other times.
- When you could have been more profitable and weren’t.
- What was the real cost and profit of the practice over the year.
The success of what your practice does is on your capable shoulders. You are the deciding factor in how the business is run and what is accomplished throughout the year. Decide today how and what your business will accomplish for the upcoming year so you can take the steps that will bring you the success you look for. After you assess the right and wrong moves you made this year, resolve to continue your success and to gain more this next year. Universal’s Accounting and Bookkeeping web site can help you keep yourself on track. Click here and bookmark the site for future and continued referencing as we share and place what we share on that information-filled site.
