Month: October 2022

I have financial clarity over our property businesses and I can’t tell you how great that feels. 

Since 2016 Chris and I have run a serviced accommodation business. We have made our fair share of mistakes but have used them as key lessons to pivot or improve. I can now genuinely say that we have an awesome cash flow business with a brilliant team, great clients and most importantly it’s highly profitable. 

I used to dread month end – a laborious process consuming hours of my time to input figures across my 52 column spreadsheet. 

In my mind I could envisage some kind of system or tool that could handle the complexities of our business – multiple holding entities some of which are VAT registered, leased and owned properties, varying management fees, multiple different suppliers and outgoings…..- Yes there are some complexities but surely there was something and someone out there who could help us! All I wanted was the ability to accurately see how profitable each property is each month and to know exactly how much net proceeds to distribute to each entity or client from our client account where all the booking revenue is received. And I wanted all of this without hours of my time and the risk of human error. 

I had tried several times to find a solution with our previous accountant but none of those attempts had delivered a result better than my spreadsheet. We had quickbooks but it was nothing more than an invoicing tool because we didn’t know how to use the other functions with the complexities of our business. 

I had resigned myself to the fact that me and my giant spreadsheet would have just keep on plodding on. 

However, my hope for a solution returned when I heard a guy on a property podcast who seemed to have figured things out when it came to finance. So I tracked him down and engaged his help. 

With a huge thanks to Josh Keegan, The Ultimate FD, I’ve transitioned from spending hours updating spreadsheets myself to working ‘ON’ the business and just signing off the numbers produced by my world class team. You can hear all about my journey to financial clarity in the podcast (link below). The results really have been phenomenal, and to have a qualified Management Accountant look under the ‘hood’ of our business and confirm it’s one of the ‘best he’s seen’ is just incredible.  

If you are looking to gain total financial clarity and control in your business, and move from managing on spreadsheets to signing off a set of professional monthly accounts, then have a listen to this podcast with the Ultimate FD as you’ll get loads of ideas.

https://www.ultimatefd.co.uk/podcast-episodes/i-have-a-spreadsheet-for-that

It’s incredible to know that with a few days of strategically guided thinking one can emerge from a sea of overwhelm and chaos into a place of clarity and direction. 

Every property entrepreneur needs time away from the weeds of their business for strategic thinking- time to reflect and to plan. It’s something I consciously do at the end of every quarter without fail. On a bigger and much deeper scale, once or twice a year Chris and I guide a small group through a 5 step process to create a 12 month vision and craft the implementation plan behind it. 

This is what we were away in the lakes working on with an incredible group of property entrepreneurs last weekend. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the end of the summer and tee up a strong finish to the year. 💪😎

Time was invested in carefully designed exercises and group masterminding sessions to do the heavy lifting of decision making – something that is very difficult to do in isolation. But with a mastermind group and structured exercises, decisions can be arrived at with conviction so you can then pivot into action taking mode in the quarter ahead. 

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO SET UP A STRONG FINISH TO THE YEAR?

Even if you don’t have a mastermind group to work through this stuff with, there are some simple exercises I’ve shared in previous quarter ends that you can follow simply by journaling answers to the question prompts. 

You can download a copy of my complete quarterly review process and the steps for planning your next quarter here:

Now is the time to do this, don’t let the end of the year close in with a feeling of regret that you wished you’d invested some time to plan things out. In 2 sittings of 30-40 mins you can review the last 3 months to acknowledge your progress, and create an implementation plan for this quarter. 

Who’s committed to a small investment of time to review their quarter and plan the next?