She's On The Money - EOFY Checklist

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

New financial year new you! It's the perfect time to check in on your financial situation and goals and take stock of how you're tracking. So we've made a list to take all of the guess work out of EOFY for you! You don't wanna miss Victoria's top 5 things you should be looking at before we head into the new financial year. Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs.  Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708,  AFSL - 451289.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, my name is Natasha Nabanunga-Bamblett. I'm a proud Yorta Yorta, Kernai, Wolperi and Awadjeri woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on Awadjeri country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through. As this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow. Let's get into it. She's on the money. She's on the money.

Hello and welcome back my friends. I'm Victoria Devine, the owner of several successful businesses and I'm joined as always by one of the hardest working side hustlers I know, Miss Jessica Ricci. Hello, I'm so excited. I'm really excited for today because Jess, what are we talking about? It's our first end of financial year themed episode and we're talking about your favourite time of year. I get really excited about end of financial year because I feel like it's such a good time to like reset, refresh, get stuff going. Yeah. And what a better time to release this than with enough time for you guys to get prepared. Like it's not going to be dropped on June 30 because that's way too late. Yeah. We're giving you enough lead up so that you can get stuff

organized. But also this isn't the only end of financial year episode we'll be dropping because in a couple of weeks, Jess, we have a very exciting accountant joining us so that we can get all of his tips and tricks as well. So we're not just preparing you with one app, but multiple. So you're welcome in advance. Absolutely. But today we're talking all about specifically small business stuff. So some changes that are coming to super this year, which might be handy for employers to know whether or not you need to get an accountant, which look at us doing that right before the accountant episode. It's almost like we did that on purpose. Oh my gosh, you need an accountant. I mean, at the end of the day, sometimes no. So we'll go through that. Yeah.

And then after the break, we've got a list that VD has put together with five things that you should be reassessing at this time of year before we get into the brand new financial year. But before we get to that, VD, what is the ATO flagged that they're going to be focusing more on this year generally? So if you've listened to our Shoes on the Money episodes around tax before, you've probably heard that every single year the ATO outlines and makes a list of things that they're going to be paying closer attention to this year for the next round of tax reporting. And we're going to touch more deeply on this in our upcoming community Q&A with our tax accountant. So don't worry, we won't be giving specific tax advice today.

But generally, this year, what they're focusing on is record keeping, which I'm not surprised. I feel like some of us are getting a little bit slack when it comes to keeping records. And as I always say, keep your receipts, whether that is the physical copy of the receipt or you snap a photo, save it in your phone. like just make sure you've got record of it because I feel like this is where money just like seeps out of your business. Like if you're not keeping track of the little things, they actually add up. Like you might go, oh, Jess, just keep that. That was a laptop. I bought a new laptop. It was two grand. But like you're spending a couple of hundred bucks maybe every single month at Officeworks and on printing and on things that you can claim. So like don't let

them slip away because they're as big as the laptop at the end of the day. Absolutely. The Next is they're really focusing on rental property income and deductions because a few people have been taking the mickey when it comes to deducting things that maybe shouldn't be included in their rental properties. So being super aware there. And then number three is they're keeping an eye on capital gains from crypto assets, property and shares. So obviously they are always going to be looking at capital gains in general, but I think that they're peeling their eyes a little bit closer when it comes to crypto nowadays, because it isn't as trackable. And now it's actually easier for them to do a little bit of a deep dive into your digital history. So I would

be keeping your finger on the pulse when it comes to making sure that you are even keeping track of your crypto. Because Jess, how many times have we heard from people in the She's On The Money community that are like, I bought crypto, but I don't know where it is. Yeah, you got to keep an eye on it. Like I bought a wallet or I downloaded a wallet and I bought some crypto. I don't know where it is or I can't remember my password like be on top of it because if it's making money you might owe some tax oh owing tax is good because it means you're making money and that's what we all want but if you can't find your password like that's not going to feel good paying tax for money you can't access what about that guy sorry I'm going on a full segue the guy

who bought the like one chance at the password I think so he bought like a bunch of bitcoin when it first dropped for like real cheap don't know how much it was but insanely cheap and then it ended up being worth like 20 million dollars or something must be nice but the whole problem was I think you're right, he couldn't remember his password and he had it, like, stored on a hard drive that he got rid of and sent to, like, the tip or something. And so he must have tried to get in his account, couldn't for some reason,

and then his one chance at finding it was gone. And apparently he was, like, going to the tip, like, searching, trying to find this thing. Mate, I would be at the tip every day. I would live there. I don't know what the outcome was. You'd be like, Victoria, are you sorting through rubbish? And I'd be like, yeah, want to join me?

Worth 20 mil. I'll pay you one off the top. I'll pay you a mil. Like, straight off the top. I'm not missing out. So funny. But yeah, check in on your stuff is the moral of the story. Save your passwords and we're safe. Oh my gosh. All right. So back into the episode, because I feel like too many of us would actually go on a complete tangent talking about crypto. Absolutely. There are two

topics this week that I want to take a little bit longer on. I've obviously mentioned the three above. Actually, Jess, can you hear that? I can hear a little something, something in the background. What is it? It's a little sweet baby. Yeah. Harvey has joined us for a recording. He is in his carrier on my chest asleep right now. And we thought, great, what a time to record a podcast. Harvey's asleep. He's decided to be a very noisy sleeper. But we will continue on and do the episode. So if you hear a little squeak here and there, I promise it's not Jess. He's just very passionate about tax. Yeah, he hears tax and he's like, oh, it's me. I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming of tax. Anyway, back to this, the sharing economy income issue. So at the moment, the sharing

economy, I feel like it's really up and coming. We've still been talking about it for a long time, but the ATO is convinced that many people in the sharing economy are not properly declaring their profits and their gains. So if you work through Uber or Airtasker or any of the many sharing economy platforms that exist now, which allow you to rent out your personal assets or like your personal services, you've got to keep an eye out, especially this year. The ATO is now receiving reports directly from companies like Uber and like Airtasker, which they're then going to use to highlight data mismatches. Yeah. And remember, if you're using one of those platforms, it's your responsibility to set aside the tax because I know if you're a small business owner

and maybe it's your first year selling stuff, or if you are someone who's Ubering or door dashing or whatever, you don't have someone taking out your tax the way you do when you're an employee. So if you haven't been thinking about that, it might be a bit of a nasty shock at tax time when you have quite a substantial tax bill because you need to be setting aside, you know, 30, 35, 45, whatever your tax bracket is percent because at tax time, it's your responsibility to pay that. Yeah, absolutely. Similarly, if you rent out a property or like part of a property on Airbnb or stays, you're going to be under the spotlight this year. The ATO has numerous third party sources of data, which it can use to identify if you're actually receiving rent.

And they're on the lookout at the moment for mismatches with tax return data that you're reporting. So they now have complete access to being able to review your banking transactions and they might go, oh, my friend, that's coming from Airbnb. Can we have a chat? So I think it's really important to just be on top of it. And then the big one, Jess, is work-related expenses. So the ATO recently claimed that there was an $8.7 billion shortfall between the tax individuals are expected to pay and the tax that they are actually paying. That's crazy. That's a lot of money. And the ATO believes that work-related expenses claims are the biggest element in that quote tax gap and have signaled that they're going to be looking really closely at the deductions

this year. So I would expect them to focus in particular on a couple of things. So first is deductions from work from home expenses. I feel like after COVID, a lot of us just kept claiming a few things that maybe we shouldn't have been and the ways that they can be claimed changed last year with the introduction of that new 67 cents per hour fixed rate and then they've enhanced substantiation requirements. So you've got to prove it, my friends. And we expect the ATO to check claims pretty thoroughly because don't forget, they've got AI working for them now. So it's not all just manual. They just chuck it in and I'm pretty sure AI could whip through everybody in Australia is really quickly, but they're going to be particularly looking at

verifying whether taxpayers have a record of all their working from home hours over the entire year in the form of like timesheets or a diary or like copy of their work rosters and such. So they're going to go, oh, Jess, you said you worked from home? Yeah. How have you been working from home? And I mean, it's easy for you because you've got an employer who will write a letter that just says Jess works from home. Full stop, end of story. But if you've got one of those flexible, you know, jobs where you're like, oh, I work from home a day a week. And then you're telling the ATO it's three, like you might end up in a little bit of a pickle because you can almost guarantee your employer is not going to be very happy to back you up on something that's not

entirely true. Well, they don't want to get into hot water. Because they're claiming that you're in the office on their tax returns. True. They're like, well, one of us is not making sense here. So let's just make sure that we are on the same page. They're also going to be looking at deductions for occupation. So, costs like rent and rates and mortgage interest are all going to be under the spotlight as they're actually not allowable unless you are running a business from home. So, I know historically a few cheeky business owners have been claiming mortgage repayments because they're, quote, working from home, but they have a warehouse down the road. So, we need to be really careful because that's not how you do it, right? That's just not on,

my friend. And then, as always, Jess, things like mobile phone and internet costs are going to be looked at. Claims for work-related clothing. And I know dry cleaning and laundry always comes up every year. People are like, did you know you can claim it? Yeah. If it's got a logo on it and was provided by work and even then you've got to substantiate it. So be careful. Things like overtime meal claims and union fees and subscriptions and then, you know, motor vehicles are going to be looked at again. So I think it's really important to just make sure that you're doing it right because incorrectly claiming deductions under the rule that allows us taxpayers who have incurred work-related expenses of $300 or less in total to make a claim without

receipts means that you need to be extra careful because if you get audited, they're going to go, Jess, well, where are your receipts? You didn't have to submit them when you submitted your tax return, but we are well within our rights to audit you and ask you to prove those costs. And at the end of the day, just don't claim things you're not paying for. Like tax system, I don't know about you, Jess, but I'm very grateful to have in place. I feel like we are very, very lucky. Let's not take advantage of it because the ATO actually believes that lots of taxpayers are claiming their $300 when they didn't incur any expenses at all. Yeah, the rule isn't that you can just claim up to $300 because you want to. You still have to have spent the money.

You can claim up to $300 without having to go through the rigmarole of getting receipts and submitting them. But after that, you do. That doesn't just mean it's a free $300 to claim. No. And as someone who has been audited and everything was all fine, it was just because I worked multiple jobs and claimed lots of things. But at the time it was like, oh, that's a flak. I feel like a lot of people just assume that, oh, I'm a small business or I'm just a small little fish in a big pond. They're not going to come after me. They will. No, Miss Jessica Ritchie got got. Well, they didn't get me good because I had my receipts.

No, but they got you. They made you anxious. Yeah, they did. They made me very stressed. Even though you had receipts? Yeah. It's like when you drive past the cops. I don't know about you, but like I'll be driving completely like normally, completely legally. Yeah. And I would just, like, have a little bit of a,

ah, the cops are there. Are they going to get me? I know. I'm like, did I murder somebody? No. Are they going to pull me over? Why would they pull you over, Victoria? Because you're looking real sus now, driving past.

Should I turn off my radio? Literally. Now, I know that all of those things can sound very overwhelming and very complicated. There's probably a lot of people listening right now, VD, going, should I just get an accountant? I mean, you could. They are tax deductible.

We love that. And you've got the receipt because if you pay an accountant, you can claim it the next year in your tax return, which is kind of attractive. But Jess, there is a reason that more than 75% of Australians actually use a tax agent and that's because tax is not that simple. So we're going to like do a community Q&A session with our accountant very soon. But I think it's really important to remember that the tax system isn't there to confuse you. Like doing it online yourself is completely possible. And it'll just take a couple of hours for you to go through and DIY. At the end of the day, they want to make it as simple as possible. We just need to make sure

we're doing the right thing. We're not claiming things that we didn't incur and we're not taking the absolute mickey. I think it's just really important that we're doing the right thing. And if you feel like you need help, a tax agent is and can be a really good idea. Yeah. And the ATO website has some awesome resources for anyone who is doing their own tax return. Like they release every year. There's a comprehensive list of what you can and cannot claim based on your industry. It lists all the limitations. So if you're wondering, can I claim my laundry? Can I claim this? Can I claim that? Like they outline it. They're not expecting you to just take a punt in the dark. So use that website, use Google. Like you'd be amazed at

what you can do by yourself without needing somebody else. And like, why not have a crack? You don't have to press submit if it all becomes really overwhelming and you're like, oh, I cannot do this, then maybe go see a tax agent. But like, why not go and give it a crack instead of just assuming that you can't do it? I also love those websites, Jess, because they sometimes trigger your memory into being like, oh, I did actually incur that. Let me sort through my things and find that receipt. So definitely refresh yourself if you haven't. A hundred percent. Now, VD, something that I know I as an employee have been looking forward to this new financial year is the increase in maybe one of your favourite investments, which is super.

You're getting more super, Jess. I'm paying you more super. Slay for me. You win. Superannuation is going up 0.5%, which doesn't sound like a lot, but superannuation used to be 9.5%, which at the time I was like, yeah, slay, this is great. It's now 11.5% from the 1st of July this year, which is very, very exciting. So employees, I would be checking your super and making sure, I don't know if employers are going to be very happy with me saying this, but like making sure that you're negotiating and that it doesn't come out of your take-home salary. Yeah. Because some employers are going to be switching that 0.5 from your

take-home salary and going, well, Jess, actually you signed an agreement with me that says that you get paid a $70,000 package. So the percentages have changed and I'm now allocating more of that package to your superannuation and you'll have less take-home pay. And that I don't think is fair. In this economy, we are trying to increase our super because it's not enough. And you know what else is not enough? Usually our pay is at the moment. Like we are in a cost of living crisis. Stand up for yourself and have that conversation. So if you have a package system at work, I would be making sure that maybe you renegotiate. If you're not packaged, make sure that your employer isn't taking it from your salary just because they think that maybe you won't check. And that's

how it happens, Jessica. No, it's going up 0.5%. Of course, it gets taken out of your salary. Doesn't though? No. And then for employers, make sure that you are paying your employees the correct amount and know when that changes and when you need to start implementing that. Also, if you're an employer, are you paying yourself super? How many times do small business owners lacks on the super thing and then get all the way down the road and find that they don't have a nice little super balance to see them through retirement. You work so hard as an employer and as a business owner that you're not setting yourself up for the future. Like if you sit business owners down and I could just sit you down, Jess, and be like, why do you do what you

do? Come up with a million things. Like you're passionate about it. You enjoy it. But at the end of the day, you're doing it to increase your income, to put yourself in a better position by not paying yourself super you're doing the opposite yeah and you're wasting heaps of time to ultimately end up in a worse off position yeah absolutely not one out of ten cannot recommend no hate hate hate but let's go to a really quick break because on the flip side v we're going to get your hot take on the five things that all our small business owners should be reassessing at this time of year before we start the new financial year so don't go anywhere coffee time welcome back everybody okay v what are the five things that you think end of financial year is

the perfect time for small business owners to be reassessing your coffee consumption no not your coffee consumption never question how much coffee you have pump it straight in straight into my veins now i'm a mum 10 million coffees thank you otherwise we are not showing up to work but the end of financial year i feel like is a really good time it's kind of like new year, new me, but like you get to do it every six months. So we can have the real end of year and then we can have the financial end of year. And we can use this as a time to either pivot our businesses or we can pivot ourselves. Like there's no such thing as too late to implement something. But the end of financial year is honestly the perfect time to reset, review and

recalibrate. So I've written down five things because like that's what I got to in my list. And I was like, yeah, five will do. Five's also not overwhelming. So we can look at all of them. so we are going to review our objectives we're going to look at business growth how fast are you growing now like what does growth actually mean in your business you might not think it makes a lot of sense because you're you know 18 months in and you go oh should I be reviewing this V and you might say but V I'm a sole trader like what's the point absolutely because it can motivate you it can show you where you've come from and where you're going and what that looks like how much are you going to grow your business in the next year what's the plan are you actually

going to be growing it by staff members or are you just growing it by the amount that you charge because now your quality is better and you have a better reputation and you should be increasing your fees consistently, Jessica. We've spoken about this before because for me, increasing fees should happen regularly. It shouldn't just be like one day you wake up five years into business and go, I've been charging the same thing for five years. I need to shock my clients and increase it now, that's just going to cause you a whole heap of issues. What number you choose is entirely up to you. We're going to have a look at your financial targets. What's the magic number that you're aiming for? Is there a magic number or are you so shocked at what you've already achieved

this year that now it's time to set some bigger and better challenges? Set it and then work backwards to determine what you're able to achieve. Also a little tip for anyone who's got a side hustle or they're sole trading in addition to their full-time job, now is a good time to assess how much you have made in your side hustle or small business, add that onto your salary and check whether that's going to bump you up a tax bracket. Oh yeah, you could be bougier than you thought you were. Because if that's the case, we're putting this episode out now so you have time to maybe make some deductible purchases that you need to make or things like that to drop you back down a tax bracket. She's a genius, but that's really important as well. Not only do you make

deductible purchases, Jess, you could put some money in your super and that would bring down your taxable income, wouldn't it? We love to see that. We love super. So sexy. It does so much for us. The next thing we're going to review, Jess, personal aims. Why are you doing it? Because I feel like so many times we lock ourselves into these businesses and we lock ourselves into these ideas. What do you want to get out of this? Are you still getting out of this business what you want? Is it sparking joy? Are you happy? If you are not, what are we changing? Maybe business isn't for you and I'm not saying that because you know when it gets hard throwing the towel that's not what I mean at all I've just spoken so many times recently to small business owners who go I wish I

hadn't started like it's not for me I didn't realize how much work it was I just wish I'd stayed in my salary and PAYG job yeah well you can go back to that yeah and there's nothing wrong with that no absolutely not and maybe you go oh I've actually realized that this side hustle thing V? It is for me. I do not want to work for somebody else. I actually need to take charge and really turbocharge this because I'm over it. I give it six months before I have to quit my job because I'm so passionate. Yeah. So what are we going to do? The next thing, sexiest thing, Jessica, we want to review your actual versus your budget. So what did you actually spend and what did you budget? If you didn't budget, what are we budgeting for next financial year, Jess?

Because that's super important. How are you tracking against your revenue and your profit targets every month? Do you have revenue and profit targets every month? If not, now might be the time to go, all right, well, I have this side hustle and ultimately I'd like to make $1,000 per month. How am I going to work backwards and make that happen? And vice versa, like if you're making $1,000 a month and you're like, wow, I didn't see this coming. How'd you do it? How can we scale that? What does that look like? Are you ahead? Are you behind? Are you right on track? So depending on where you are in relation to your budget, this is actually going to determine where your decision making needs to change in the new year, which is kind of helpful. You're like

becoming your own business mentor. And that's genius. Yeah. We're going to look at our cash flow. So cash flow is different to your budget. And you need to always remember that. Reviewing inventory levels, like how much stuff have you got or work underway is important at this time of year because you might be able to move some of it before the end of year and put some extra dollars into your bank account or make some extra plans. Like maybe you're running out of stock. you know you've been so busy that you haven't had time to stop and reassess you go far out actually by the time i order new stock it's going to be two or three months before that arrives yeah like maybe i need more sooner than i thought i did and that could be a stumbling block later down the

track that actually puts you backwards let's review our debt what debt have we got have we got a business loan who owes you money is the important one chase them up follow up your invoices. We are following up our invoices and we are not sorry to follow up our invoices. If you're feeling so awkward about emailing a client, do you know what you did? You just got an assistant, Jess. We love an assistant. We love an assistant. And back when I couldn't afford an assistant, what did I have, Jess? Fake assistant. I did. I had a fake assistant before I had Jess and fake assistant would follow up on behalf of me and be like, hi, so sorry. I work for Victoria and I'm just chasing this debt that you definitely haven't paid.

And then they'd say, check with Victoria. And I'd be like, I did. I am Victoria. So I never let that cat out of the bag. And to be honest, if you're a client of mine from like 2015 and you've heard that, no, you haven't. But that was because I was really anxious and I really hated following up debtors.

Now I'll pick up the phone in two seconds and be like, hey, you all right? What's going on? How can we, you know, follow this up and come to an agreement because I need you to pay your debt. end of the day. That's how it should be. But if you can't, I totally get that. Adopt a fake assistant. Maybe you've hired a fake assistant this financial year, Jess. And put a like hard deadline on it. I would say like, I feel like when you're having those emails, like now is a really

good time of year to say, hey, please ensure this is paid prior to the end of the financial year, because a lot of businesses will also get that. They'll understand. And they probably need to tidy things up on their end as well before the end of the financial year. So if you even just expressing, hey, like I need this done prior to EOFY, like you might have a bit of luck. And hopefully people are paying. If they aren't paying in a new financial year, you could potentially look at putting a caveat on your invoices as well that basically says at the bottom of the invoice, if the invoice isn't paid, it could be referred to debt collectors at your expense. And that actually puts you in a more powerful position so that if you need to go

down the debt collector route, you don't have to pay the debt collector personally. You get your full sum and the debt collector can add the amount that they are charging on top of that invoice. Whereas if you don't disclaimer that on your invoice, they'll take it out of the total sum that is payable. Yeah. I speak from experience as someone who's had to collect debts before, Jessica. Yeah, I can tell you've been wounded. I've been burned. I've been burned and you don't have to be because I'm learning for both of us, Jess. Absolutely. And then we are going to look at our key expenses. So direct costs associated with raw materials and components and other bits and bobs that make up your products. Typically a large expense known as the cost of goods sold or

COGS, Jessica, and catch up with suppliers if you've got them and discuss your plans for the new year and get them all on board. Like get them intertwined into your excitement. Like I think that that is going to motivate you, but also make sure that everybody is on exactly the same page. I'd be looking at all your other expenses. What's happening there? Are there any trends? Are you always incurring way more expenses than you thought you would, Jess? Like is admin taking you way longer than you thought? What expenses can you bring down? How can we save money? Review your bank statements. How many subscriptions have you got inside your business that you're not using? Like, did you subscribe to the AFR and then you don't read the AFR? Like, don't get me wrong.

I do. Don't take it off me. But if you weren't, that's a good time to cut a subscription. Do you know what I mean? Like now is the time to cut things. And if you're consistently cutting things, your business expenses won't get out of hand. Speaking of things getting more expensive, what else should we be looking at right now? Your pricing. Love it. So I'm not saying review your pricing because it's getting more expensive and you should lower your prices. We're valuable businesses. We are increasing our prices, Jessica. But what you need to be doing is a sales analysis. so how many units did you sell what units sold or how many dollars have you had in sales and what are the effects of any promotions you've run are the promotions you're running actually helpful

or are you running promotions because you're like oh I probably should do a sale because everybody else is doing a sale and it actually puts you behind yeah because sometimes we might have a product and the margin on the product's five percent like we're not making much at all but maybe you were like oh everyone else in my industry is doing a 20 off sale like that's actually putting you in the hole. Like that is not a good idea at all. So review these things and review them consistently so that we're always on top of it. What is the effectiveness of your sales team if you have one? Like if you've got a sales team, are they actually driving sales or are most of your sales coming organically through TikToks? Like let's understand how the business

is driving us forward. Are there any interesting trends that you can see? Is there anything different that might be impacting your sales this year versus the previous year? We're going to do a margin analysis, Jess. So I was talking about this before, but which product or service is most profitable? What could you do to improve the margins or the sales of this product? What has been the impact of any discounts they've offered? As I said before, are you offering too much of a discount because everybody else is? Or is a discount something that you might want to consider like new financial year sale or something to drive a peak in sales at the beginning of your financial year. And where are you making the most money? Have a look at that and deep dive into how you

can turbocharge that aspect of your business. Because I promise it is easier to sell to pre-existing clients than it is to attract brand new ones. Absolutely. And if cost of materials and things have gone up, that's going to have eaten into your margins now. So that's where it's a great time to go, okay, well, if the cost of XYZ material has gone up by 5%, I need to be passing that 5% onto the consumer. Otherwise, I'm now out 5%. Yeah, exactly. And the other thing I would do and not get hung up on is a competitor analysis. So what is your market doing? Do you have any known competitors? What are they doing? How do your prices compare? How do your products and services compare? How close are your offerings to those of your competitors? And how do you

differentiate yourself even more? So we always use, you know, the example of a candle business. there are so many of them, but they are all still successful, right? Because we all have different reasons and like key into, oh, but I really like Jess and I like her product and I like having it in my house. Or, you know, you might go to Mecca and buy your candles because you like spending a lot of money on candles. But it's one of those things where you need to do a competitor analysis, but I don't want you comparing and feeling less than or that you're not doing enough because we're all on different journeys. Like if you're a photographer and in your first few years of working in a business, yes, obviously a competitor is a pre-established business that's

been around for 15 years, but don't compare yourself to them and expect yourself to be at that stage or at that level. Use them as inspiration. Every time you feel envious, go, why? And try and channel that into becoming inspiration instead of envy. I think so many times it goes into envy because you go, oh, wow, I wish I could have that. You can if you work hard enough. And that's a very cool outcome of doing a competitor analysis. I really like that. That's such a nice way to reframe it. Now, we did a Business Bible episode about this recently on how you spend your time in the business. It was back on April 24th, if anyone missed it. But I think end of financial year is also a really great time to review how you are spending your time

inside your business, right? Absolutely. And I feel like end of financial year, as I said, every six months is a new year of some form and we should be using it so I guess my best tip obviously in addition to all of the tips above I think it's more about reviewing your use of time how much time are you spending on each part of your business are you working 100 hours a week and making four dollars is that how you want to spend your time how can we change it so that that's not always the outcome you might find that that's your reality but you know that there's a bigger picture at play. And in a couple of years, you'll be working one hour and making millions. So it's all about perspective as well. We're not saying, oh, don't use it how you want. But sometimes

we find ourselves in a bit of a business whirlpool and we just keep doing what we keep doing because that's how we've always done it. But that doesn't mean it's correct. And then is it time to outsource some tasks? You know, if your business is growing, like could we outsource something? Could we get a VA? Could we get somebody else involved? And then also like, how do we know when is the right time to hire and who? Are we going full blown into having a full-time employee? Are we doing part time? Are we getting a casual employee? Are we just getting a VA for a few hours a month? Like, what does this look like? And is this reasonable for our business at this time? And I guess, speaking of this, if you have one, we are reviewing our team. We are reviewing performance

to date. This isn't because we're trying to be savage, Jess. Your team members deserve a review. like I know you and I like sitting down and going all right Jess what have you achieved this year vice versa how have you liked working with me what does this look like how does this work it's a two-way street when it comes to team performance review have you scheduled performance review meetings with all your team members before the end of the year or before the end of the financial year whichever you want to do do you actually have formal documents to support the performance management process in your business your business is not too small to have formal documents I feel like so many times small businesses go, I'm too small. I know Jess really well. Jess, do we do

formal performance review in our team? Of course. But it's so helpful because it lets us slip out of this friends and getting stuff done and day to day and going, all right, well, actually, I've got this formal doc. Let's go through it together. You've put your notes in it. I've got mine. Like, where are you at with these things? Because even though we're friends, you know, I'm the business owner and you work for me and we have, you know, gone beyond that. I feel like you deserve that from me and vice versa. And if not, now's the time to do it. There are heaps on Google. I can always share mine at some point, but I think kicking off the new year with tangible targets for your team gives them more motivation. And you know what motivated people

do Jess? Make money. Make more money. And we like that. We're going to be looking at rewards. Your team deserve to be rewarded. Incentives and bonuses can be a really great way of rewarding contributions that your team members make to your business. Don't forget, they are working for you. They are working to build your business and that deserves to be rewarded. They can obviously be really effective in increasing activity during slow times and really motivating your team. I've heard from a lot of people who have said, I can't afford rewards. I can't afford the benefits for my team and don't get me wrong we are all in different places to offer incentives or bonuses but you need to make sure that your team members feel valued and you could go hey Jess

obviously we're not making heaps of money as a business and I really wish I could pay you more how about I give you a couple of days off next month not included in your annual leave like there are lots of ways to incentivize your team members that don't include cash if cash is in short supply, which for a lot of people at the moment it is, that doesn't mean you can just not look at your team members and make them feel valued. Yeah. Career development plans and discussions around that. Even if you have a performance review discussion with your team each year, how clear are their career development discussions? Where do they want to be in 12 months? Where do they want to be in three years? I feel like you need to be open with your team to

the point where that could be not with you. And that's not a bad thing. And I've always said that, Jess, I would keep you every day for the rest of ever. But I also would never want to get in the way of your career development. And if I become a beautiful launching pad into a bigger, better career for you, slay. Like, that's amazing. I've been part of that. But I think that too many times people assume that by having career development discussions with their team, they have to have the career inside their business. Like I go, oh, Jess, well, where would you want to go? And at the moment, you're kind of sitting at the top of what you do in my business. Yeah. So how do we have those career development discussions where you might go,

well, V, I actually want to stay here and I really would like to do A, B, C, D and E next year. Great. That's adding additional value to my business. Or you might go, yeah, look, at some stage I'd like to launch into big business and take on a really corporate structure. Great. How can I help you to get there? Because I promise you're going to get more from your team if you're helping them to get where they want to go than if you go, oh, but you have to stay in my business forever in a day. That is such a good point. And it really is so true, I guess, for both an employer and an employee. It's really important to be checking in with each other. Is there any other last little tidbits before we go away that you reckon people should really be getting on top of

this end of financial year season? Your clients and your customers. So let's review our service. Are we serving who we want to serve? Who are your most profitable customers? How do we get more of those ones? Who are your least profitable clients? How do we have less of those? What are your service highlights? Like have there been some like flashes of brilliance? Like have there been some things that you've been like, wow, actually we knocked it out of the park for that client. Jess, how do we do it again? How do we do that and take that magic of that experience and give it to everybody in our business? What are the lowlights? Have there been some issues along the way? How do we make sure it doesn't happen again in the next 12 months? And then maybe you

could open it up as an opportunity for feedback. Now is a perfect time to get feedback and survey your customers seek feedback through surveys or focus groups or interviews or just pick up the phone and be like hey Jess long time no speak are you still loving working with us you said that ages ago but like has the service been the same I'm just gathering some feedback to make sure that next year is our best year yet and I can almost guarantee that everyone's going to be like oh yeah Jess I really want to be on top of this so go to your most important customers first but send an email you'll get some feedback and it will put you in the best possible position to have the best year yet. I completely agree. And I think like the overall theme of today's episode is like,

we're halfway through the year. It's a really good time to stop and take an assessment of what you've achieved, what you want to achieve. Like, let's kind of get a bit of that new financial year, new me. And, you know, just take stock of what you've done because like, it's been six months and that's incredible. And we're so proud of you. For those of you who have been working in a business for six months or have been planning something, maybe you're just ready to launch it. I feel like I have nothing else of value to add, VD. That was an awesome episode that I feel like will help a lot of people. So fun. All right. Well, we'll see you soon. See you on Friday. Bye. The advice shared on She's on the Money is general in nature and does not consider your

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