Bad habits are inevitable—it’s human nature. Whether it’s procrastination, lack of time, or not enough long-range vision, it’s never a good idea to neglect these habits when it comes to your business. After all, operating with bad business habits can and will hinder your ability to grow to your full potential. Neglecting these habits can also become costly, if not identified and addressed early. Curious to see if you might have some of these all too common business habits? Here are three bad business habits you should identify and fix as soon as possible to keep your business on track to success. 1. Neglecting Your Finances Growing your business requires proper and consistent bookkeeping. With only so many hours in a day and a never-ending laundry list of tasks, it’s easy to get side-tracked by billable work because at the end of the day—it’s profitable. However, the costs for this business habit are far too great. Lack of financial education or leaving finances last can affect your business in multiple ways, including lack of visibility into the financial health of your business, unexpected tax bills from the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) or Internal Revenue Service (IRS), missing financial deadlines, and the financial costs of having to rebuild disordered processes and systems. See also: What happens if you don’t do your accounting? How to fix this bad business habit: Stay up-to-date with your bookkeeping with regular check-ins with your finances. Our recent release of Kashoo 2.0 has locked down several critical functions that help small business owners with minimal accounting knowledge to not only avoid mistakes or duplicates, but also to gain back time. Some of these features include: Smart Inbox: Kashoo’s new smart inbox now boasts features such as Optical Character Recognition (OCR) receipt matching and smart invoice matching that completes the “grunt work” for busy business owners. By syncing your bank accounts to Kashoo, our smart inbox uses machine learning to help small business owners stay on top of their finances with minimal effort. Drag & Drop Receipts: Small business owners can still manually record any business expenses if that’s a healthy habit that they’ve formed. Much like the old Kashoo, business owners can still take a photo of their receipts to attach to their correlating transactions, but Kashoo 2.0 now offers a “drag and drop” feature for easy upload and tracking. Simple User Interface for Procrastinators: Kashoo 2.0’s new Inbox dashboard was modeled after your email inbox and is made for easy review and categorization—even if small business owners tend to have the business habit of leaving things to the last minute. Easily categorize expenses and deposits in one place before these items get finalized in your general ledger: the Transactions tab. With tax season around the corner, finalizing a complete and accurate set of reports by tax time is easily doable! 2. Not Letting Go of “Bad” Clients to Make Room for Better Ones Better clients make for better business. Unfortunately, introducing bad news to clients (like letting them go) is never the easiest conversation to have. Bad clients take up time and resources—all of which prohibit small business owners from acquiring better clients that are good to work with and pay when they tell you they would. Understanding the difference between a bad client versus a good one comes from ongoing communication with them, their invoicing habits, and a deeper insight into money received. Luckily, Kashoo’s new release can provide this much-needed insight in an easily digestible way. How to fix this bad business habit: In Kashoo 2.0, you can now view your customers and/or vendors through the “Contacts” button on the left-hand menu. Here, small business owners can sort through information by contact names or transaction details. Benefits of this new feature to improve this business habit include: Custom View of Each Client/Vendor: Small business owners can view all related transactions, including a custom view to see how much the client has paid to date or how much a vendor has billed to date. For example, a simple Filter function allows business owners to sift out client details such as start and end dates and minimum and maximum dollar amounts. A Better Overall Financial Picture: Because Kashoo automatically categorizes details on each client/vendor, business owners can see exactly how much money has been invoiced or billed to date. From there, business owners can easily assess which clients are profitable so that they can allocate their time accordingly. 3. Not Making Everyday Decisions for the Long-Term Many small business owners get caught up with short-term goals. Although equally important, long-term growth is equally—if not more—important to consider because it enables true growth and scalability. Instead of focusing solely on short-term goals, place emphasis on where you want your business to be in three to five years. This may mean investing in the appropriate tools and equipment for your business to operate sustainably or hiring quality candidates with the proper skills and knowledge to do their job. For example, although onboarding is typically costly, doing it right the first time will enable your employees to have the tools and confidence they need to deliver on their work. How to fix this bad business habit: Planning your business for the long-term is a healthy habit that every small business should have. When conducting long-range planning, small business owners should consider: Hiring Quality Over Quantity (Or Lack Of): Setting up too high of expectations when seeking to grow a team can work against you. Instead, focus on hiring quality candidates with the potential for improvement or someone who is a cultural fit. These individuals will grow with your company over time as opposed to not. Invest in Equipment: Buying quality equipment can yield significant benefits for business owners (and their staff). Improved safety and security, increased productivity, and the ability to take advantage of tax incentives are all factors that affect the long-term success of a business. Align with Business Needs: Long-term planning looks at aligning current business activities to the values and needs of your company. Sometimes the seemingly cost-effective route to building a business can result in more time, money, and stress. Conclusion: Paving the Road to Better Business Habits Building healthy business habits is vital to a sustainable business. Whether you find your day-to-day too swamped, lack long-term vision, or struggle with procrastination, Kashoo’s new 2.0 release can be there with you every step of the way to make the accounting process easier. Try Kashoo 2.0 today with our free trial to discover how we can make bookkeeping processes better, quicker, and more efficient for your small business!
