Top Five Necessities That Can Help Your Business (Four If You Are Not A Liquor, Wine, or Cigar Shop) -- Part 2

4.  Accounting Software
--Yes, you need this.  You need to see where your money is going and from where it is coming.  An accounting program (there are plenty: Quicken, QuickBooks, Sage 50, xero, and more...some are free, but, we cannot attest for them) will calculate, automatically, your bank statements, providing you are putting in the information correctly.  These may also help you with taxes, especially if you need to show the government what you are doing each quarter.

At the end of each day, enter all your income and expenses for the day along with the reason you spent or acquired the money.  If you cannot do this, hire somebody to do this for you.  If you do not have time to do this now, you will not have time to do this later if you are concentrating on your business...AND IT NEEDS TO BE DONE.  There are also categories (which you have to designate) for each expense and income entry.  These are all very helpful so that 5, 12, 18, 26 months in the future, you are not looking back and wondering, "What was that about?!"  You will have a tangible record (which can be saved and printed) for your files, should you ever need to provide it to anybody who needs to see it.

5.  Your Employees!!
--This one is by far, hands down, THE MOST IMPORTANT NECESSITY you have for your business.  You need your employees.  Treat them well, make them happy, and they will treat your customers well and make them happy.  If you do not care about your employees, but have a, "Customers First," mentality, that means that you may be throwing your employees under the bus.  They can't work for you if they are crippled.  If you do not care about your employees, do not be surprised that they do not care about your business and will leave: Seven Reasons The Best Employees Quit, Even When They Like Their Job or, worse, not: Seven Passive Aggressive Behaviors Killing Company Morale  Check out our posts yesterday concerning high turnover (and a video we will re-post today about how to be a jerk and not recognize a great employee),  Not having an, "Employees First," mentality could kill your business.

It happens like this: If you have hired the right people for the right job, or you want to retain the people you hired, but, do not support them, that may make your customer happy, but, your employee will feel no commitment to your business.  If s/he resigns or is terminated, a replacement will need to be found for that person.  It will take time and money to train that person...and while training may end in two weeks, all the knowledge that a person needs to do the job well may take at least a year to acquire.  In the meantime, the lag time due to training and getting a rhythm down for the routine, will slow business...and may undoubtedly upset customers...which is what you were trying to avoid in the first place.  Finally, if you decided not to be there for your employee, what does that tell your other employees?  Their time is limited, too, and they may decide to see if they are appreciated elsewhere.  Where will lack of employees leave your business?

Make sure you hire GREAT employees and make sure they know they are great.

~Cheers!