According to recent research published in Xero’s ‘Make or Break’ report, only 91% of UK businesses survive their first year – and only 41% survive the first five years!

That’s pretty disturbing news if you’re in the early stages of running your business, or your company’s currently feeling the pinch and struggling to bring in profits. So, what makes the difference between business success and business failure?

The reasons why your business may be struggling are many, but one of the biggest reasons is not having the right overview of your financial information.

And this is where Xero online accounting can help turn things around.

Financial consulting concept. Compass needle pointing the word gains over black background with blur effect
Not knowing where you are
Whether you’re managing a brand new start-up or an established business, there’s one thing that can let you down – not knowing where you are.

Too many businesses survive with one eye on their bank balance and another on an ever-growing pile of bills to pay. They survive, day to day, but there’s no stability, no profit and definitely no foundation for growth. And this kind of short-termism can be fatal for a number of reasons:

  • You don’t have a clear view of your cash flow.
  • You’re always one late customer payment away from going into the red.
  • You’re racking up aged debts and liabilities.
  • You’ve got no long-term view of profitability.

And, importantly, you’re creating a lot of undue stress, tension and worry for yourself.

What you need, as the business owner is a clear, current view of where your business is RIGHT NOW and in the future.
The advantages of real-time data
Xero is online accounting software that puts you back in control of your key numbers. And it does that by bringing you a key advantage – real-time data.

With Xero at the centre of your business systems and a choice selection of plug-in Xero Add-ons integrated with your accounts, you suddenly have a completely real-time view of your business information.

  • Xero provides you with a direct live feed to your bank account – so you always have a completely up-to-date view of your bank balance
  • Automated bank reconciliation makes matching your statement with your transactions easy and keeps your Xero balance current.
  • Your invoicing is all done online in Xero, with your invoice balances and payments all pulled straight through into your Xero balance.
  • Receipts, expenses and paperwork are all scanned directly into Xero with Receipt Bank, meaning your expenses are always accounted for.

The net effect of these real-time data benefits is that you always have the most up-to-date data in your accounting system. And how does that affect your chances of survival, you may ask?

Well, 97% of Xero users survive their first year (as opposed to a 91% average). And 88% of Xero users are still operating after five years (as opposed to 41% average).

So ‘going real time’ really DOES make a difference. And with this real-time data available, you can start to get a truly insightful view of your performance.

Get back control of your performance
When you’re making long-term decisions about the future of your business, it’s vital to have the most insightful information at your fingertips.

With Xero’s real-time data and the business intelligence power of Spotlight Reporting, you get an amazing insight into your business.

  • Use the Spotlight Dashboard to get a one-page overview of all your key business numbers.
  • Put key metrics in place to measure the numbers that are most important to your business – be it sales figures, or customer numbers.
  • Get a completely current view of your cash flow – and cash forecasts for future months as well.
  • Create informed budgets and measure your budgeted spending against your actuals at any point in the month.
  • Produce monthly management information that measures your key performance indicators (KPIs) against prior periods and forecasted targets.
  • Manage the profitability of the business – and see how your changes affect those numbers in real time.

In short, get back control over your numbers and your performance. And help your business go from ‘struggling’ to ‘successful’.
Sign up for our webinar – and make your business a success story
If you’d like to know more about real-time numbers and how they’ll improve your business, why not sign up for forthcoming webinar ‘Making a success of your business – not just a living’.

We’ll show you how to address time, improve cash and get back the control needed to revolutionise your business.

Sign me up for the webinar