Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explains why people will risk their safety to eat. First things first. Makes sense. Maslow is also a …

That’s the lovely thing about recurring revenue and that is why it helps make your business more valuable. Margin is “earnt” by …

Robert Hughes’ excellent book The Shock of the New helped me to understand cubism. A movement that tried to see things from …

It won’t help to speak louder and slower to the accounts team, it will not help at all. You need to be …

Have you ever been shocked by your credit card statement? Surely you didn’t use it that much? How did three cheap lunches, …

Trying to keep on top of everything is hard enough at the best of times but Covid has made it even harder. …

A weekly cash flow forecast is one of the most important tasks you can do in your business. Lots of businesses have …

I have always said that once you get to be an outside cat it’s very difficult to go back to being an …

“No HAL 9000 Series Computer has ever made a mistake..” 2001 A Space Odyssey is a great movie to revisit if you …

There is an old saying that if you listened to your accountant you would never buy a business but also never sell …

If you have ever gone down the employee share option plan (ESOP) rabbit hole you might never want to again. Everyone you …

“To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.” Maslow. I imagine one of …

When television first took off in America it was widely assumed that radio and newspapers would die out. In the 1990s the …

One of my clients is talking about putting a new hire on hold because of the Sydney lockdown, not the only one …

Everyone always talks about the rent, perhaps because it’s a big percentage for individual households, but for most office based businesses it’s …

In a previous blog I asked you to think about what sort of car your business was, I imagine you didn’t say …

The origin of “cash is king” is not clear. It was used in 1988, after the global stock market crash in 1987, …

Your management reports need to be an accurate insight into the performance and health of your business but they also need to …

Even if you are bored by cars this is a great question marketing people ask to find out how a brand is …

If you want your business to be lean and mean make sure it’s pants don’t fall down.  You have probably heard the …

A shout out to our mates on the other side of this desert country. Hopefully we get to see you all soon. …

When your business is just starting out it can grow fast in different ways. If you are used to working for a …

There is a vegan butcher in Newtown Sydney. I love that. For a while now retail has been splitting between cheap bulk …

Cash comes and goes without much of it going to you. Sound familiar? Most businesses focus on profit, as well they should, …

A while ago I wrote about how employee utilisation is an HR problem not an accounts problem and it got me thinking about …

The golden years for employees and thier families was after WW2. Most workers in the developed world earned enough to raise a …

People are told to “cut out the middle man” like its a good thing, but specialisation is what allowed us to stop …

  ….. One, but I could have done it better”.   Most accountants think they are good at management reports, and that’s …

You have a million important things to do, and keep getting interrupted, it’s almost lunchtime already, and then an employee wants to …

One of the reasons the Victorian English were annoyed by Charles Darwin is because he challenged their idilic view of the countryside; …

Everyone is so bloody exhausted by 2020, it makes it very hard to think ahead, but the holiday break is a great …

It’s been a rough couple of years, when is the best time to put someone on? Even before COVID things were not …

The reason some bosses hate the idea of you working from home is they think you are going to slack off. Being …

One of the best things about working in the city is being able to get out for a run at lunchtime. A …

A 4WD enthusiast told me that he wouldn’t trust a fancy new electric ute. What if it broke down in the outback?   …

My Octopus Teacher on Netflix blew me away. It is so beautiful, I absolutely recommend it. It’s a lovely view of lessons from …

It seems everyone wants to grow their business at all costs, to be the next Atlassian. But trying to do that can …

Even today people continue to talk about the difference between strategy and housekeeping in business. I catch myself doing it sometimes and …

Anyone who runs a service business knows the feeling, a constant concern about balancing the amount of work on and knowing when …

It wasn’t that long ago that we were discussing the end of jobs for life. How we would need to retrain a …

How do you know if you’re making money from your SaaS sales? It’s easy right? If you sell it for more than …

If you have to spend money on compliance, try to get some value from it. Bookkeeping and tax definitely fall into that …

There is no end of advice out about how to be more productive, to get more things done in your day. But …

Do Not Only Eat Cake It’s absolutely fine to put high-value, time-based, consulting work on top of your standard products. That suits …

We often recommend better management reporting, but also, the equally important, regular time put aside each month to review and interpret the …

Is your business really lumpy? Or is it just the accounts? And if so, is it, beneath all that distortion, having problems? …

In last week’s blog entry I talked about how what might appear to be a lumpy business is more often just lumpy …

Most people only have a limited number of different tasks to perform each day. If they are delivering work for clients, their …

Time flies – but it can also sink you. So how do you better control it? Usually only people that bill by …

Some things have to get done – else they will come back to bite you later – but they won’t necessarily grow …

If you have to present a budget paper to your Board and/or investors it’s a good idea to provide a document explaining …

Check out “Design The Life You Love” by Ayse Birsel. This is a great read for business owners. Especially the consideration of …

Human beings work better with constraints and we are usually not very good at restraint. Constraints drive better creative solutions, plus we get …

I recently did a podcast interview with the very cool Leigh Dunsfield from Waddle Loans Check it out https://soundcloud.com/waddlepodcast/thomas-taylor-t2-consult-podcast

If you have a 30 June year end you’re probably putting the finishing touches on your annual budget. If you are, it’s …

We mostly work with businesses that have really big clients, it seems to be the thing that defines us. And most knowledge …

There is that old saying that “if you what to improve something, first measure it”. And if you really want to know …

I remember being told at my first university economics lecture that we have to assume human beings always make rational choices. That …

Is running your own show is the best way for you to grow? One option might be to join up with a bigger …

A while ago I wrote about why you should bootstrap for as long as you can noting… “Apart from the obvious benefits of having …

The world seems to be splitting into extremes. Amazon and the like are wiping out traditional retail, luxury retailers are doing fine, …

There is something that I think happens at a particular stage in every growing company. The time you realise you don’t know …

Those mountains aren’t going to climb themselves and you need a good base camp or your best-laid plans will fail. Absolutely make it …

We all know about economies of scale for big businesses, and of course, there are major diseconomies too. Otherwise small business would …

Does your billing/front office system equal the accounts each month? If not you might have a black hole. Regardless, you won’t know …

These years just keep getting faster… Right now you’ve hopefully had a lovely break and thinking that getting stuck in can probably …

If you’re doing all the cool things like continuous billing, accruing and prepaying expenses, twice monthly salaries, something like ReceiptBank for automated accounts payable …

One of the best ways to waste time and/or money is to do your own bookkeeping in-house. But we all do things …

There are four ways to grow B2B sales. New Clients from Inbound Marketing A lot of people think that businesses that don’t …

We often put up with sub-optimum solutions. Things we’ve always done a particular way; ways that mostly just waste time and cause …

We all know that we need goals, and unless you measure something it won’t improve, but don’t get too stressed out about …

Give us a shout if you need a hand getting ready to change over to Xero at 30 June.   It’s good …

I had a great question put to me the other day. You often hear of companies saying “our growth almost killed us” …

When we assess a business for financial security and sustainability the following is what we look for. The big one is recurring …

Hotels have a magic number that they all aim for. That number is 80% occupancy. The percentage of available rooms occupied each …

Add Sensible Spinach To Your Smashed Avocado Thomas Taylor – Monday, May 21, 2018 We’ve changed our name. We are now Green Spinach …

Accounts staff will often tell you they’re too busy when you ask them to do something new. I get it thats annoying …

There might be 50 ways to leave a lover, but not many ways to leave a company that you have built. And …

These days, for most businesses, it’s all about recurring revenue. A lot of Real estate agents aim to fund their basic operating …

Guest Post by Raz Chorez In over a decade of consulting, I’ve learned to take nothing for granted. I don’t assume as much …

These days smart firms are forming their service offerings into bundled products that better align with and meet client needs. Once upon …

To manage your firm, you need to know the most important ratios. Utilisation is by far the most important for most, but …

The NSW government is giving small businesses in NSW a grant of $2000 if they employ new full-time, part-time and casual workers …

Remember when cruise control was just on flash cars? When a Mercedes stunt to demonstrate automatic emergency braking went terribly wrong and …

Humans have an innate tendency to take more risks when we are under pressure. Put what’s left on a horse race, kick …

This is for all the people that use timesheets. There is an old accounting saying that if something is out by only …

All those trend setters, not following traditional business models, have the opportunity to build a modern, agile and flexible businesses unimpeded by …

Happy New Year all. I hope you had a great holiday if you managed one. Fresh for a new year and, like …

The most successful businesses I’ve worked with have all had one thing in common, they all had some sort of advisory board. …

I know everyone is flat out right now but it’s a really good time to do a cash flow forecast and make sure …

That’s an old accounts joke. It’s only funny if you’ve ever struggled with an accounting course. And everyone does when they first …

The Dalai Lama said “It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself …

We like saying we are no smarter than anyone else but we get to see inside a lot of businesses at the …

Scenario planning is something that makes perfect sense but a bit daunting to tackle for a lot of people. An easy way …

Have you noticed that there seems to be a bunch of new Outsourced CFOs about? This is a great thing, I think …

Leaders do vision, they are responsible for the strategy, and then they facilitate the actions everyone needs to take to make the …

I’m writing this on a public holiday, the sun is shining and, after this, the dog and I are going for a …

It was years ago now, and before I met her, but Suzzie M told me a great story about how she helped …

We’ve all heard it before … “there are too many people in accounts”….. but first a detour via refrigerators. Hang in there, …

You’ve most probably heard of middle office and decided it was a banking thing designed to try to stop dealers going off …