Year-end checklists for businesses

Kelli Rodda
Guest editor

The older I get, the more I say with exasperation, “I can’t believe it’s already [fill in the blank with the month of your choice]!”

My grandmother was right. The older you get, the faster time passes. On a related note, she was also right when she said energy is wasted on the youth.

When I looked at my professional and personal calendar for the rest of the year, I had a heart palpitation. But as business owners, you have even more year-end responsibilities. There are several things to consider regarding your business as the year closes.

Caron Beesley is a marketing communications consultant who blogs for the Small Business Administration. Here are some of her suggestions for a year-end review.

1. Assess your core activities
Core activities essentially encompass your business operations — areas to assess include your core products and services as well as your customer base. Ask yourself questions such as:

Which products or services are the most profitable? How can you optimize operations around the success of these?

Are any products that are failing? Are there any changes you can make to enhance their sales or profitability (production, distribution, sales, marketing, price, etc.)?

Has your core customer base changed in the past year, and what market forces impact your customer base?

Where can you realize efficiencies?

What do your customers think of you? How “customer-centric” is your approach to business? Successful businesses watch the customer, become the customer, and involve the customer.

2. Conduct a sales and marketing review
In addition to measuring your sales performance and marketing ROI against your objectives and business plan, a full sales and marketing review should also include an analysis of market forces and the benchmarking of your business against the competition — an efficient way to do this is to conduct a SWOT analysis.

3. Evaluate your employees
Annual performance reviews are traditionally always something that managers and employees tend to dislike, if not dread. But a well prepared and honest performance review is an invaluable way to base line employee performance (strengths and weaknesses), recognize achievement, and ensure that individual goals are aligned with business goals.

4. Review your business finances
Every business is different so it’s worth talking to your accountant about your individual circumstances, but as a guide you will need to review:

Budget — Do you have one and are you sticking to it? 

Cash flow — Is it sufficient? Can you forecast cash flow trends so that you can anticipate problems and prepare for them in advance? Do you need and have a contingency plan?

Profit — What is the state of your gross profit margin?

Cost base and pricing — Review your cost base (constantly). Do you need to adjust pricing — how will this impact your customer relationships?

Borrowing — Are you staying on top of your business loan or overdraft obligations? Should you refinance?

Taxes — Get a step ahead of tax season pressures now to help maximize your deductions and sail through tax season.

Find more small-business help at www.sba.gov/community.