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Now that 2015 is about to come to an end, it makes sense to come up with New Year’s resolutions specifically catered to improving the financial health of your business and setting financial goals for your business to achieve.  

Here are the top 5 New Year’s financial resolutions every business should stick to for 2016:

Review Financial Statements Every Year

Doing financial statement analysis every year is an important New Year’s resolution for your business – but not every business realizes its importance. It allows you to properly see the trend of the financial health of your business. An upward trend is a great sign that your business is doing well, current trends are in your favor, or the economy is doing great. A downward trend is a strong signal that you should take immediate actions to cut down losses in order to keep your business afloat.

File your Taxes Earlier

Using the same reason why we leave home earlier to avoid the rush hour traffic, filing your tax documents earlier is an effective solution to avoid the tax-season rush.

There are other benefits to early tax filing too. For one, early tax filers get their refunds faster. For those who have pending IRS balances, you’ll have enough time to know exactly how much you have to pay before the deadline. Filing early is also a good way to protect yourself from identity thieves who prey on vulnerable taxpayers lost in the fray of the tax season rush.

Get all these astounding benefits; make it your goal to file your taxes early.

Pay Closer Attention to Inventory

Inventory is where every business owner’s skill at forecasting and meeting demands is tested. It’s a difficult tug-of-war between being overstocked and being understocked. Considering how hard it is to sell leftover stocks in the inventory and the expenses it require to keep them, it’s necessary to include paying close attention to your business inventory in your list of New Year’s resolutions.

When in doubt, let the 80/20 principle help you out. In general, the bulk of your sales came from a small portion of your inventory. By properly identifying which particular stock generates the most value, you can now reliably predict which items to stock up and which items you should keep down to a minimum.

Be Diligent With Receipts

Dutifully recording and organizing your accounting receipts as soon as you get them will help a lot in preventing tax year from becoming a horrible nightmare. Make this New Year’s resolution stick by getting your business an accounting software and get yourself properly trained to use it. This way, you can easily enter and organize receipts in way that allows you to breeze through tax year, avoid an IRS audit, and even spot possible deductions your business can take advantage of.

Better Track Customer Credit Payments

Offering credit is a great way to boost revenues. However, failing to follow up on your receivables and letting them pile up will hurt your value as a business owner and harm the financial health of your business as well, making tracking credit payments an important New Year’s resolution for your business.

Unfortunately, tracking each customer with payables stacked up will eat up a lot of your precious time, which could be better spent at improving business operations and sales. For convenience, hiring an experienced bookkeeper is a great investment that will allow you to quickly identify which customer to approach for credit payment and keep the financial health of your business back on track.

Prepare and Stick to Budget Goals

Preparing, and sticking to, a budget goal is a necessary New Year’s resolution that will keep your business from overspending. One great way to make it easier to plan and stick to budget goals is to make them every quarter. This way you can properly identify budget pitfalls every 3 months that you can immediately revise for improved budget goals and spending.

Sticking to all of these New Year’s financial resolution can be pretty difficult, but with professional guidance, each of the resolutions is definitely achievable. If you feel you are struggling to set and keep your New Year’s financial resolutions, reach out to us at JDM Business Services. We can make sure you achieve all of your New Year’s financial resolutions for your business in 2016.