Your accountant has the numbers. But do you have the plan?

It's that time of year again. The pressure is on to file your end-of-year accounts. Nothing like a deadline to get things done, right?

With today's tech, most business owners will already have a good idea of their annual sales and profit. Your end-of-year accounts will be no surprise. And for those SMEs that use forecasting, hopefully your forecast matches your actual financial performance and position.

But hope isn't a great strategy unless you enjoy the thrill of the unknown. As someone who is terrified of theme park rides, heights, and anything where I am not in control (I can hear my husband sniggering as he reads this), I like to have a plan. I like to know I am on track. As far as I'm concerned, my end-of-year accounts are just some obligatory paperwork that keeps IR off my back and out of my books.

Note to any accountant reading this: if your services are built entirely around compliance, you may find you get left behind as clients seek financially savvy advisers whilst AI takes care of the low-value work.

Setting Targets That Actually Work

If you want to maintain or grow your sales, I suggest you start by setting some monthly or quarterly financial targets, split by product or service (or customer segment or geographic area – whatever is appropriate for your business). These targets might be the same as last year if you are finding market conditions extremely challenging, or you might aim for moderate growth, say 5-10%, to stay on top of rising fixed costs.

For example, Tasty Pies wants 10% growth on last year's sales of $225k / 45k units. Each month they will need to sell $20,625 worth of pies or 4,125 units (assuming no price increases). Break these targets down further into product type (or geographic area or customer type) and start tracking actual sales.

Why the Sales Matrix Works

This Sales Matrix helps with:

Direction and planning – for promotional activity, workflow planning, sales calls, and investment decisions

Accountability – owning and incentivising behaviours and outcomes

Confidence – you make better decisions when you can see your numbers

Early warning signs – pinpoint problems and make changes at the right time

Proactive decision-making – avoiding reactionary behaviour

Intentional growth – the difference between hoping you have a good year and actively building towards one

If you'd like help setting up a Sales Matrix for your business, or if you want to talk through what realistic growth looks like for you, get in touch. I'd love to help you build a plan for the year ahead – one that's based on intention, not just hope.

Because your accountant can tell you what you earned. But only you can decide what you'll achieve.