business advice
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Is Accounting Just Administration Work?
When I ask people what they think what accountants do, they usually respond with things such as recording or issuing invoices, making payments, or presenting taxes. The funny thing is when some say “anybody could do it. I did the accounting of my own business, but I hired an accountant to save time”. Accounting, unfortunately,…
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Pay Right and in Time, but Don’t Pay Twice
Imagine that you run a department like Accounts Payable. You hire more or less the right number of people. They focus on processing invoices. You pay suppliers more or less in time. From time to time minor issues occur, but your suppliers are happy in general. Time later, the company, like any other business, goes…
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Never Look at One Single Ratio
“This year we have grown 20% of sales compared to the previous year and we hit the 2 billion euro in revenue!”. I’m sure you have heard of this several times in one way to another. Companies that celebrate they made more sales, kept expenses under control or expanded to new markets. This sounds as…
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Who does what? Why businesses need well-defined processes
You’re driving in a city. There are traffic lights, signs or all sorts. You know you have to stop when lights are red, continue when they are green. You know that if a standing sign is missing, you’ll have to look at the paintings on the ground. In contrast, if two signals contradict each other,…
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This time of the Year
Reaching the end of 2024. Many organisations take the time, if they haven’t already, to look at what went and not so well, appraising the performance of the company according to the goals they set to meet during the year, and review if changes need to be done, like removing objectives that no are no…
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When Chaos Reigns and Everything Seems Lost
It’s very early in the morning. 6:00 a.m., to be precise. I could barely sleep. The situation at the company is unbearable. Five years ago I decided to start my own business. I got a loan, bought computers, tools and other equipment for my workshop. Latest technology, with lots of features promising high levels of…
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A matter of Luck or Risk
Often, we see businesses succeed or fail. Same with people and their careers. If they succeed, we see them as brilliant, gifted or even smarter than regular people. In contrast, when they fail, we see them as the opposite. Of course, we know that there are some variables that play a significant role in the…
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Where should I look at?
Another concern when running a business is how to track and measure your progress. If you have been investigating, probably you have seen all sorts of metrics: customer complaints, revenue, market share, reviews on social media… Anything that can be measured can become a metric. However, what are the right ones? This is often a…
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The Concept of Value
I have a friend who works as an electrician. Once he was called to fix a switch that wasn’t working. He looked at it, and in less than five minutes he fixed it. After that, he charged him for his services. His customer pointed how come he had to pay that much for a job…
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Margin of Safety
One of the difficulties when starting a business is predicting the volume of sales and costs in the future. You don’t need to be a genius to guess that it’s impossible to know exactly what is going to happen, either if your product will be a complete success or that a competitor will launch another…
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