3 Keys to a Financially Healthy Business

Photo by CC user irsein on Flickr

Why did you open a business?

For many business owners, the idea of being their own boss was the main lure to starting a company.

Others, meantime, liked the idea of taking an idea and running with it, hoping to see financial success along the way.

No matter what your incentive or incentives in starting a company, maintaining a financially solvent business is of the utmost importance. When the finances are in question, the longevity of your company is too.

That said are you doing everything within your power to make sure your company is around for the long haul?

Look for Financial Red Flags

When it comes to correctly running your business, you have myriad of matters to stay focused on.

From making sure finances stay in the black all the time (or at least more times than not) to keeping your operating budget within reason, there is much to keep you occupied.

In moving forward with your company, focus in on the following three financial keys to keep things moving in the right direction:

  1. Customer transactions – Obviously without customers buying goods and/or services from you, where would you be? If you said out of business, you are certainly correct. That being the case, those customer transactions need to come off as smoothly as possible. Now, when some customers essentially renege on paying for the purchases you made, you have a problem on your hands. To sum it all up, you simply can’t afford for customers to change their minds and not decide to pay you after each and every purchase. One prime example of this is making sure you are avoiding countless chargebacks. For those not up to speed on this matter, chargebacks happen when the customer for whatever reason chooses to fight and ultimately not pay for a product or service they purchased from the business owner. In doing so, the former has essentially created a sizable headache for the latter. The business owner must now file paperwork to try and get that payment processed, all the while dealing with the fact that they’re out some money they were obviously expecting with the sale. If a business owner files too many chargeback claims, he or she could ultimately end up losing their processing privileges. If it sounds like a mess, it is. And if it sounds like a big problem for business owners financially, stats have shown that to be the case. Do your best to make sure customers are not taking advantage of you;
  2. Avoiding shoplifting – You hear and see it on the news almost regularly. Whether it is petty shoplifting or shoplifting of the major kind, consumers end up stealing from business owners each and every day. When this happens, the latter is once again left in a financial predicament. So that you can lessen the chances of being the next shoplifting victim, review the security features you have in place. Obviously, what kind of business you run goes a long way in determining if you are more vulnerable to shoplifting. Such crimes typically happen in stores, boutiques etc. If you are running those types of businesses, not only should you have video monitoring equipment in place, but also consider hiring security to walk around the business. You may even opt to hire “fake shoppers” for the premises that is individuals who pose as shoppers, but are really doing security work in watching shoppers as they move around your store.

Avoid Non-Stop Employee Turnover

  1. Employee stability – Unless you are operating a one-person business, you are depending on your workers to do as much as possible to make your company a proven winner. With that in mind, it is imperative that you avoid the never-ending employee turnover that too many businesses have to deal with, much of it caused by how they operate their companies in the first place. Make it so each person you hire will want to be with you for the long haul. Not only is regular employee turnover embarrassing from a PR standpoint, it also ends up costing businesses lots of money over time. When you find stability in your company and your workers, good things tend to happen.

In order to keep driving your business forward, make sure you are managing it with a focus on financial success.