The Small Business Owner 4th Quarter Check List
Today’s blog post will focus on your 4th quarter business goals to ensure that you have all of your basis covered. Let’s define what the 4th quarter is, and what it means for your business. “A quarter refers to one-fourth of a year and is typically expressed as a “Q”. The four quarters that make up the year are January, February and March (Q1); April, May and June (Q2); July, August and September (Q3) and October, November and December (Q4).”-Investopedia definition.
The 4th quarter of your business will help you to understand where your business is currently, and where it is headed into the following year. Here’s a quick checklist of how to prepare for the following year while helping you finish the current year strong:
Consult with your accountant on these two critical aspects of your business now
Profit and Loss Statement: It is important to have a clear understanding of your finances. A profit and loss statement is a financial statement that summarizes your annual revenues, costs, and expenses incurred. To be more specific, the statement provides you with a financial picture of where your business stands as of today. Prior to preparing a Profit and Loss Statement, talk to your accountant about depreciation, profit, any rules, and whatever questions or concerns you may have. *Tip: don’t forget to include meals and mileage. Keep copies of any calendars, travel, meetings as this documentation is a valuable record of your work.
1099 Statement: The 1099 statement is a year-end tax summary form. It’s typically used for self-employment, rents and royalties. If you have an accounting system, double check to see if there is a 1099 field. Check with your vendor if you aren’t sure where to find the option to create a 1099.
Budget for the New Year
Once you’ve looked over your profits and loss statements, now is the time to start working on a budget for the new year. Look over bank statements, any investment that didn’t produce results, consider cutting back on items and don’t forget to include a budget for re-investing into your business. Whether that is for marketing, purchasing items, or business consulting.
Strategic Planning & Preparation for the New Year
If you work with a team, consultants, advisors, business coaches, now is the time to meet with them to discuss the future of your business. Don’t forget to highlight your accomplishments with your team, and most importantly, thank them for their hard work! *Tip: Add any customer feedback to the discussion in order to improve any areas of your business.
Client and Vendor Appreciation
One way to show your clients and vendors appreciation is to send either holiday cards or smalls gifts. If you’re planning to send out gift items or holiday cards, try to purchase your items as early as possible to have them sent out in time for the holidays.
Back up your files
To avoid the risk of losing important information such as client, vendor, financial data, marketing content and other files, back up your files. You can do so with a cloud back up, drop box and google docs. Be sure to label the files accordingly so their easy to identify.
Audits
Website: Do a quick run through of your website, and check to see if all of your links are working properly. Remove sales and promotions if you’re no longer running the campaigns, any irrelevant comments from the comments section of your blog, don’t forget to remove spam-like comments. Delete any services that you’re no longer offering.
Email: Clean up your email inbox, label groups or persons of the most used email addresses, remove and delete the ones you don’t respond to. Clean out your spam inbox.
Shavaughn Baker, CEO
The Corporate Concierge Group
Coaching, Consulting, Lifestyle Management, Event Services
Follow: Instagram @thecorporateconciergegroup Twitter: @theconcorgroup
