You're not alone. Many business owners in the NDIS and Allied Health space, find themselves constantly reacting—putting out fires and jumping from one task to the next. But with the new financial year now underway, it's time to start the New Financial Year with intention and clarity.

Be Intentional: Plan, Don’t Wing It

One of the simplest yet most powerful habits you can develop is taking just a few minutes each day to set clear goals. These don’t need to be major milestones—just three focused actions each day that move you closer to where you want to go.

Write them down. Commit to them.

Even when unexpected things come up (and they always do), you’ll have made real progress by the end of the day.

Financial Preparation is Key

Being clear that your time is only part of the picture—now’s also the time to prepare financially for the year ahead. Start by putting a few practical measures in place:

• Create a budget for your business. Know your expenses, income targets, and how you’ll track against them.

• Prepare a cash flow forecast to anticipate any peaks and troughs before they hit.

• Set up separate bank accounts for things like tax, super, and other obligations. This helps you avoid surprises and keeps your main account clear.

• Block out time in your calendar to review your finances regularly weekly or fortnightly works well. If it’s not scheduled, it probably won’t happen.

Make Progress Visible

The best part? When you make this a habit, progress becomes visible and measurable. You’ll feel more in control and less overwhelmed.

So, what are three things you can do today to set yourself up for the new financial year? Write them down and take one step forward on each.

This will enable you to start the New Financial Year with intention and clarity.

Need a hand getting started?

Click Let’s Chat and we'll set up a time chat about your unique situation.

#NewFinancialYear #SmallBusinessTips #CashFlowPlanning #BudgetingForBusiness #TimeManagement #DailyGoals #NDISBusinessSupport #AlliedHealthBusiness #TakeAction

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So how can you determine if you have the right team in your NDIS, Allied Health or not-for-profit business?

Well, here’s some thoughts:

First you need to evaluate your team.

So, look at:

Skills and Qualifications:
Do your staff have the necessary skills and certifications. Check their work and contact the bodies that issued their certifications

Cultural Fit:
Do your team members align with your organisation’s values and mission. What do your staff value and do these align with the business?

Performance and Feedback:
Regularly review performance and gather feedback from clients and peers.  Have a performance review framework that checks in at least quarterly with staff.  Use a survey and calls to clients to understand what your clients think about your business.

Next, we look at what we need to do.

Here are 3 tips to resolve staffing issues:

Training and Development:
Invest in ongoing professional development to keep your team updated with the industry standards.

Effective Communication:
Open communication by having regular meetings and providing feedback to address issues early.

Recruitment Strategy:
Revise your recruitment process to attract the right talent with clear job descriptions and thorough interviews.

AccordinHaving the right team working with you ensures a cohesive, skilled, and motivated team dedicated to providing exceptional care to your clients.

If you need help with asking the right questions and assessing a candidate's suitability, I am available to support you with this important task.

Just reach out below https://bit.ly/HPAACall!

#NDISProviders #RecruitmentTips #BusinessSuccess #Higherpurposeaccounting

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• Why should I bother with a budget or cash flow forecast?
• How can I make sure there's enough money to pay my staff and myself?
• What's the right price for my product or service?

Businesses, particularly small ones can really struggle with managing the financial aspects especially meeting compliance deadlines for taxation and superannuation. 

Do you want to be in the position of having a tax debt?  Or not being able to pay your staff on time?

Budgeting (and cash flow forecasting) can be the difference between growth and sustainability or chaos and failure.  But where do you start? What do you need to include in a budget and cash flow forecast?

Before I answer these questions, let’s look at what each of these is in more detail.

What are budgets & cash flow forecasts?

A budget is an estimation of revenue and expenses over a specified future period and a means to track your progress.  These are usually created each year and referred to each month.   A cash flow forecast shows money coming in and out and the timing of it.  For example, you may invoice for one month but receive payment in the next month.  It is generally reviewed and adjusted on a weekly basis.

Why do I need them?

These tools keep us organised and give us something to aim for.  Each of these provides us with a framework to work with and help us avert issues like a cash deficit.   They also allow us to take advantage of new opportunities as these appear enabling us to grow our business and our wealth.

Banks, lenders and grant providers will also request you provide a budget and cash flow forecast when applying for funds to support working capital, purchasing assets and for project grant applications.

How do I put them together?

Putting together a budget and a cash flow forecast can seem complicated and daunting. But it really doesn’t have to be.  You just need to have a framework, some boundaries to work within and a template to complete.  Here’s some things you can do:

• Determine the number, frequency, and pricing of your offerings.
• Identify various expenses, including staff, rent, subscriptions, travel, utilities, and office-related costs.
• Break down your cash flow forecast on a weekly basis, while outlining your budget on a monthly and yearly scale.
• Create a checklist for all essential elements and document the assumptions you've relied on.
• Utilise a pre-designed budget and cash flow forecast template for enhanced organisation and efficiency.

- enter all income and expense categories for the year by month.  Total this by category, month and year.
- You may need to have separate sheets showing how the monthly figures come together (eg: x number of services @ $Y price each)

Now, how do I use them?

There’s not much point putting together a budget and cash flow forecast unless you are going to do something with them.  You’re just wasting your time!

So, how do I use each of these finely crafted documents?

Budget

With the budget you would want to:
- Add the budget to your accounting software
- Run a Profit and Loss report each month
- Compare your budget to the actual outcomes

Now you can then adjust for current and projected future outcomes.

Cash flow forecast

In the cash flow forecast you need to:
- review your cash coming and out of your bank account weekly
- compare this to the previous week’s forecast
- update your bank account opening balance for the week
- adjust your forecast for cash coming in and out for current and future weeks

From my experience, this can be a quite a challenge for many businesses, particularly smaller ones and not-for-profits. That’s why I created an online course with a simple but structured approach to budgeting.

The course takes participants through:
- understanding why we need a budget and what we need to include
- creating a robust budget and using it to make decisions
- how to monitor progress and cash flows in the business 

It’s quite comprehensive. So, participants can get assistance from me to plan the budget and review it as an extra to the course.

I always say that without a budget and cash flow forecast, you are doing things blindly!  So, will a budget and cash flow forecast save your business?  I truly believe it will!

So, what can I do now?

Book a 15 min chat to discuss how the Budgeting online course will help you create a budget that works for your business.

You’ll determine what revenue you’ll need to pay your staff, pay yourself and pay your expenses.  And, you’ll have cash flow to grow your business!  Click the link below to get started!

https://bit.ly/HPA15mCall

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1. Invoice Each Day
It may seem that it is more efficient to invoice weekly, fortnightly or even monthly.  But remember once the service or product is provided you are entitled to be paid and cash flow will suffer the longer you take to get paid.

4. Paydown Debt
Debt can be helpful at times to help grow the business by financing assets or short-term needs.  This will benefit the business in the longer term.  But having debt like credit cards and overdrafts that don’t get paid off promptly or at all, are a recipe for disaster.  In the longer-term as the business becomes reliant on them for operations rather than growing the business.

6. Review and Systemise Your Processes
Every business is dynamic so what worked today may not be suitable for tomorrow.  Regularly reviewing your business and creating systems for repetitive tasks/processes is a must.  Otherwise, you run the risk of operating inefficiently and are unable to respond quickly to changes in your situation.

If you want more strategies, download My 7 Top Strategies to Improve Your Business Cash Flow in 7 Days. These strategies will help you get some structure around knowing and managing your cash flows in your business. And will save you time and give you peace of mind as well.

To download a copy and start implementing yourself, click this link:
https://www.higherpurposeaccounting.com.au/7Strats7Days

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This involves assessment and documentation of multiple processes, along with full reporting on all business operations - from the inside out.

Genuine quality control means there are no nasty surprises when the external auditor comes to call.

In an ideal world, every NDIS provider would use a failsafe system of internal audits to mitigate persistent risks in an increasingly complex industry. But the world of NDIS compliance is not ideal, and can be relied upon to change constantly.

Here are five ways internal audits can streamline organisational processes and empower NDIS service providers.

1. Go digital

Many providers in the disability arena are wary of doing away with paper-based audits.

Yet this stops them achieving optimal performance. After all, paper gets lost - thrown away or stored in the wrong filing cabinet. Store your data in the cloud and it provides you with a virtual office that is scalable and secure.

Manual, paper-based audits also tend to get done erratically, if at all – either forgotten or pushed back to another date. Time-poor staff spend valuable hours transposing data manually to collate results. It’s a laborious process.

Cloud-based audits allow employers to more effectively track, measure and assess performance.

2. Simplify risk assessment

The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission lays down strict guidelines concerning risk management in NDIS organisations.

Disability service providers now face a dizzying array of statutory reporting obligations relating to:

• Management of incidents, complaints, information and human resources.
• Work health and safety.
• Governance issues.

Smart assessment tools allow you to simplify and streamline your entire risk assessment process - identifying, documenting, evaluating, assessing and treating key risks proactively versus reactively in your organisation.

3. Pursue continuous improvement

NDIS disability service providers are now expected to demonstrate continuous improvement in every aspect of operation.

If your own self-auditing process is ad hoc, incomplete or messy, you won’t be able to document or prove your progress in any consistent way.

Beat your own benchmarks by using a digital internal auditing system which supports a Continuous Improvement plan.

4. Turn up the transparency

Disability service providers are in constant communication with clients, employees, contractors, auditors and the NDIS Commission – or they should be.

NDIS Practice Standards are cracking down on poor reporting practices, along with failure to document, communicate and act on a range of incidents and complaints.

A fit-for-purpose system with audit scheduling and tracking capability could effectively support one or many auditors in your organisation.

5. Provide the evidence

Disability service providers can no longer survive with sloppy work practices and gaps in documentation.

The Commission requires them to collect evidence, share results, show improvement and demonstrate compliance to external auditors – in a systematic way.

An evidence-based audit system ensures you can record critical data, rate performance, measure and review progress.

Blog provided by Centro Assist 12.2020

If you would like some assistance, get in touch. Click here!

To know more about what Higher Purpose Accounting Advisory can do for you, Click Here!

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Provide your feedback in this survey and be part of the movement in helping business thrive in the NDIS.

The survey will take about 4 minutes of your time to complete depending on your responses. Your time to complete this is greatly appreciated with a chance to receive a $100 gift card.

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Please be assured your response is secure and the information provided will only be used to develop services critical to helping NDIS Providers improve their service delivery and administration.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CMW3XMX

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Firstly, identify what activities you will undertake and break these down into revenue earning or cost incurring ( or investment) and determine the time frames for each type.

Next, review each of these and make adjustments on a periodic basis  to measure the impact on the business.  Having a yearly budget together with a cash flow forecast, regular reviews and re-forecasts will give you a solid foundation towards financial success.

If you would like assistance with any or all of these areas, arrange a consultation with me now using the details below:
www.higherpurposeaccounting.com.au

The post Get the planning and monitoring right appeared first on Higher Purpose Accounting.

A major factor to consider is the structure of your accounting system and how transaction information is captured.

Remember garbage in, results in garbage out. Know what it is you want to track and what are the drivers of revenue and costs.  Then set up your accounting ledger and client management system to capture this information on entry and in a categorised way.

This means the information will come out in a meaningful way when you run your reports and enable you to make useful decisions in a timely manner.

If you would like assistance with any or all of these areas, arrange a consultation with me now using the details below:
www.higherpurposeaccounting.com.au

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