It takes guts to start a business. It also takes a strategic mindset to succeed.
Business owners are no strangers to weighing risk and navigating uncertainty, but the recent economic climate has dialled everything up. Many business owners face the uncomfortable position of having to remap carefully thought-out succession plans and exit strategies and to consider selling their business before they’re ready and, possibly, for less than it’s worth.
Transition may be a better option
Rob Young, Managing Director of Platform 1, works with business owners on ensuring they get the best possible return when selling their business. Rob’s advice is to start by thinking about what options you have first.
There are five different ways to sell:
Close the business down and sell the assets
Sell to a family member
Sell to an employee
Just a straight sale to an outside party
Gradual buy-out – The Platform 1 model.
The Platform 1 model is a gradual buy-out program. It involves finding a manager to take the reins early on. Gradual buy-out a process that involves:
figuring out what kind of individual would be right to run the business; finding that person, and developing them.
Creating a plan where the new manager buys in gradually over 3 to 6 years. The objective is to get the owner out of the business physically as quickly as possible by transferring relationships and processes to the incoming person, so the owner becomes more of an investor rather than a manager.
Preparing for sale – what’s important
Get your house in order – Ensure you have systems and processes in place so the business isn’t reliant on you, but can run as a standalone entity.
Maximise your profit – Make sure that you are not taking decisions to minimise your tax liability – because what you’re trying to do is create a profitable business.
Don’t put off your succession plan – even if you are not ready to sell
It’s a good idea to think about this long before you need to sell so that you maximise the value of the business and achieve a better outcome. It’s also worth remembering that retirement doesn’t need to be doing nothing. If your business can run as an asset without your involvement, you don’t have to sell it completely, so not selling down 100% of the business is a viable option.
Talk to us today about your succession plan
If you don’t already have a succession plan in place, we can help so that you have options when you need them.
When you’re running a business, it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day activity and lose sight of the big picture. Taking stock of the health of your business is important. Knowing where you are allows for more effective planning, early warning about any issues, and the chance to better chart a course for success.
There are some quick ratios that will help you to gauge the health of your business. We can help you to assess your business health and show you how to calculate these vital checks.
Liquidity Ratios
Liquidity ratios are about how quickly you can turn your business assets into cash – which helps you assess whether you’ll be able to pay the bills if cashflow gets tight.
High ratios are better, as this means you’ve got more assets than liabilities.
Current ratio
Current ratio = Total current assets / Total current liabilities
As a general guideline, 2:1 is a good current ratio, but this does depend on the kind of industry you’re in, and the nature of the assets and liabilities.
Quick ratio
Quick ratio = (Current assets – stock on hand) / Current liabilities
This measure excludes your existing stock, which you may not be able to quickly turn into cash, and is seen as a more realistic quick snapshot of your position.
Solvency ratios
Solvency ratios look at sources other than cash flow to see whether your business will be able to settle debts.
Leverage ratio
Leverage ratio = Total liabilities / Equity
This is a measure of whether your business is reliant on debt financing or equity to fund your assets. A higher ratio can make it harder to borrow money.
Debt to assets
Debt to assets = Total liabilities / Total assets
This tells you what percentage of assets is being financed by liabilities.
Profitability ratios
Profitability ratios will let you know how efficient your business operations are. Where possible, it’s good to measure your business against others in your industry.
Gross margin ratio
Gross margin ratio = Gross profit / Total sales
This ratio tells you whether you can cover the necessary business overheads from your sales.
Net margin ratio
Net margin ratio = Net profit / Total sales
This measure tells you the percentage of sales dollars left after you’ve settled your expenses, except for your income taxes.
Checking in on your business health is a great habit to get into. Using these ratios helps you to understand your current business health and allows you to plan. Talk to us about how to calculate the factors in these ratios in order to keep your business on the right track.
Treasury has provided draft legislation on a May 2023 Federal Budget measure to extend your businesses 2-year amendment period to 4 years for income tax returns.
Small and medium business entities
You are a small or medium business entity for an income year if you:
carry on a business during the income year, and
one or both of the following applies:
the aggregated turnover of your business in the previous income year was less than $50 million, and/or
your business’s aggregated turnover for the current year is likely to be less than $50 million.
Current amendment period
The period during which the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) may amend an assessment for businesses your size is 2 years. The amendment period applies from the day on which the ATO gives you a notice of assessment.
Proposed amendment period
The draft legislation proposes an amendment to allow the ATO to amend the tax return for your business, upon your request, within 4 years after the day on which the ATO gave you a notice of assessment. The application for an amendment must be in the approved form and given to the ATO before the expiry of the 4-year period.
The additional time is intended to reduce the administrative burden on your business if you need to amend your tax return, as well as on the ATO. The current 2-year period is considered too short, as outside of this window you would otherwise have to engage in costly and lengthy objections and appeals processes with the Commissioner of Taxation.
Note that the Commissioner may only amend your assessment to give effect to the decision on your application. As such, the provisions will not allow the Commissioner to amend your assessment about other items not included in the application. This is to ensure that sufficient certainty is still afforded to you, as the 4-year period only applies in respect of those particulars mentioned in your amendment application.
What doesn’t change
Despite this proposed change in legislation, there is no change to the length of time you are required to keep records for your business. You need to keep records for your business in case the ATO wants to audit your tax return.
For instances such as fraud and tax evasion, the Commissioner of Taxation may amend your return at any time. Generally, records are required to be maintained for 5 years from the date on which the record was prepared or obtained, or from the time the relevant transaction or act was completed, whichever is the latter.
Contact us
Please note this draft measure will be required to receive parliamentary approval before it comes into effect. In the interim, please do not hesitate to contact our office should you have any queries.
Australia’s small businesses are the power behind our economy. Small businesses (employing less than 20 people) added nearly $590 billion of value in 2022, making up around a third of all Australian gross domestic product (GDP) for the period.
But keeping on top of your financial management, accounting and tax planning can be a major challenge for some owners.
With this in mind, the ATO has set up a new advice portal for small business owners, giving you tips and advice on everything you need to know about your finances and business taxes. Strengthen Your Small Business
Essentials to strengthen your small business.
The ATO’s Essentials to Strengthen your Small Business portal is your first stop for business advice. There are helpful tips covering everything from having your first business idea, through to founding a startup, growing a business and even help on exiting the business.
From a tax perspective, there are several courses to help you keep your tax on track:
Starting a business – this course helps you set up your first business, with advice on common business structures and the registrations you need to run a small business.
Using your business money and assets – this course gives an overview on paying yourself, with advice on the different options and the records you must keep.
Record-keeping – advice on using technology to help your mandatory record-keeping, and on overview of the tax and super records you’ll be required to keep.
Claiming small business tax deductions – this course covers expenses you can deduct immediately, expenses you can deduct over time and expenses you can never deduct, as well as motor vehicle expense deductions.
Growing your small business – This course helps you plan the growth of your business, alongside other considerations like GST and capital gains tax (CGT).
Goods & Services Tax (GST) – an overview of who must register for GST, how to calculate GST on sales and purchases, as well as other requirements such as invoicing, record-keeping, and reporting GST to the ATO.
The ATO’s online resources are incredibly helpful when you’re starting out as a business owner. But if you need deeper advice on mandatory record-keeping and tax, come and speak to us.
We’ll be glad to take you through all elements of your tax requirements and record-keeping.
Projecting your cashflow pipeline forwards is vital.
To be able to navigate the future path of your cashflow, you need to start forecasting – so you can map out your financial position over the coming months and can take the appropriate action to safeguard your cash position.
Plus, when you have access to detailed forecasts you can scenario-plan, search for cost-savings and look for strategies that will preserve your cashflow position.
Forecasting your future cash pipeline
Remaining in control of the cash coming into (and going out of) the business is the real focus, so you can accurately predict your financial position and can resolve any issues.
Key ways to get more from your forecasting
Run regular forecasts – The financial landscape is changing on a daily basis at present. A cashflow forecast is not a document that remains static. Variables and external drivers are literally changing each day, so it’s vital that you run frequent forecasts and react swiftly to any projected cash issues as they become apparent.
Use the latest cashflow forecasting apps – cashflow forecasting apps, like Fluidly, Float, Futrli Predict or Fathom integrate with your accounting software. They give a drilled-down view of how your cash inflows and outflows will pan out over the coming months – information that will inform and justify the decisions you make during these extremely challenging times.
Explore the right revenue streams – most sectors will have seen their sales change over the last 18 months. To overcome this, there’s a real imperative to explore revenue streams and new opportunities for income. This could be offering a new product or service, or working with a new partner. The idea is to find ways to increase the money that’s coming in the door and balance out your unavoidable expenses.
Get proactive with cost-cutting – if you can reduce cash outflows to a minimum, that will have a real impact on the health of your future cashflow. Pare back your operations and aim to reduce things like unnecessary software subscriptions, or over-ordering of basic supplies. Negotiating cheaper rates with suppliers, if possible, will also help.
Review your staffing needs – it’s never great to make anyone redundant, but you can also look at ways to reduce the costs of staffing and resourcing without getting rid of staff completely. Reducing working hours or redeploying staff in different roles are all options that reduce payroll costs, while also looking after your staff.
Run a variety of scenarios – changing the financial drivers in your forecast model allows you to scenario-plan different strategies and options. Many of these will be in a long-term plan once conditions improve. Scenario-planning lets you answer questions and will give you some hard evidence on which to base your decision-making and strategic outlook over the coming months.
Look at various ways to access funding – if forecasts show a giant cashflow hole coming up, you’re going to need additional funding to get through this crisis. We can assist your business to investigate funding opportunities from grants, banks, loan providers, alternative lenders and crowd-sourcing funders.
Talk to us about setting up cashflow forecasting
Forecasting is an important step to give you the business intelligence to support your decision making.
Get in touch to improve your control over cashflow.
