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I want to share with you an idea of mine that my clients have found quite useful to manage cashflow over the holiday period, and that is the Annual Leave account.

In New Zealand the end of year summer holidays can often be tricky because you may not be earning as much, and yet you still need to get paid, you still need to pay your staff, and you still need to pay your bills.

The simple solution is to set up a new bank account, I simply call it Annual Leave, and transfer regular weekly or...

There has been a lot of conversation in bookkeeping circles this year about niching, many advocating that it's the undisputed path to take. The result is that I'm having conversations with bookkeepers, both new and experienced, and they're talking like it's a given that everyone should niche. Cos, you know, everyone's saying that they should.

Well I'm not saying that you should. But you could.

There are certainly some gains to be had from niching. You leverage the business knowledge in that...

Last week one of my clients asked me a really good question about sales conversations, and just like I did with another client's question a week or so ago, I turned my answer into a blog and sent it to my email list. 

Blogging is great for marketing for lots of reasons - keywords and SEO, repurposing content into social posts, something to email your clients etc.. But if you're new to writing, or if you don't consider yourself much of a wordsmith, then you probably find that you don't...

There is a distinct difference between bookkeeping and accounting and it's important to acknowledge that it's not one vs the other. Bookkeepers and accountants have a very synergistic relationship and, ideally, work well together for the benefit of their mutual client. 

Generally speaking, bookkeepers are the ones who are across the business accounts on a more regular basis, as their job is to process the day-to-day transactions. This may include bank reconciliations, payroll,...

I love networking but I've had to learn how to do it, and I've learned to love it.

I'm probably considered outgoing and approachable by most who meet me, but I can be a little introverted at times, and so networking was something that didn't come easily at first.

Fake it 'til you make it has long been a favourite of mine and it applies well to networking. I don't mean be fake. Quite the opposite in fact, you need to be authentic and genuine.

But if you think about who a person would...

Whenever I do a business review for my own business, one of the things I want to get a handle on is return on investment for the various networking groups I belong to.

The cost of belonging to these organisations is actually quite a lot, especially when you consider the time and travel investment as well (which you should).

I’ve always been a big proponent of networking. I really enjoy it and BNI was integral to the growth of my last business with a tangible financial return. Some of...

I thought it would be helpful to create a checklist of things to ask when I was in sales conversations, or a discovery meetings. But what I found was that it was just distracting, so I got rid of it.

Instead, what I do is I approach these conversations from a place of curiosity. I want to find out all about their business, and about how they currently do things.

Puzzled?

Conversations are a bit like completing a jigsaw puzzle. As the conversation progresses, pieces of the puzzle...

When I joined BNI, over 10 years ago now, it started working well for me very quickly. And so I thought, this is great! I’ll find another group to join and I’ll get more referrals. But from the very first meeting I realised that that was going to be a problem.

Part of the reason that structured, consistent networking groups (like BNI, Venus, Pod, TNG etc.) work, is because you develop trusted relationships with the people in your group. You get to know, like and trust them, and...

When I owned my bookkeeping business I was once asked if I had a different rate for data entry work. The inference being that that particular task was worth less than the bookkeeping rate which I had quoted.

The thing is though, with bookkeeping it’s never just data entry, right? Every entry effects the system and we need to understand the cause and effect of what we're entering. That’s where a bookkeeper’s specialised knowledge comes into play.

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