Building your business has been hard, but right now it all seems to be working. You have dozens of clients and a history of good service and strong reviews. It may seem like it will be all smooth sailing from here, but this is almost certainly not the case. As the Covid-19 pandemic proved, a crisis can come out of nowhere and take a successful company to the very edge of bankruptcy or even close it down.

Pandemics are fortunately rare, but company closing crises are sadly not. Not all crises are as obvious as product defects, large accidents or a PR disaster. As former senior partner of McKinsey & Company, Doug Yakola says, “sometimes managers underestimated how critical their situation was - or they were looking at the wrong data.” Whatever crisis may befall your company, here are 6 things you can do to get out of it. 

Informed business decision-making - from effective daily financial management to strategic future planning - requires specific, timely information that allows business owners to understand where the business stands financially at a certain time, what is happening over a period, and where action is required to improve financial performance. 

This information can be found in a number of common financial reports. When regularly reviewed by small business owners and corporate companies alike, these reports provide a finger on the pulse of an organisation’s financial performance and enable owners and managers to make informed business decisions quickly. In this article, we find out what insights these reports reveal, and which five reports business owners should review regularly. 

“Taxpayer: One who doesn’t have to pass a civil service exam to work for the government” (Anonymous)

“Tax Freedom Day” is the first day of the year on which we South Africans (we’re talking about the “average” taxpayer here) have finally earned enough to pay off SARS and to start working for ourselves.

This year the predicted date was 12 May 2022. That’s three days later than last year, and a whole calendar month later than in 1994 when we first started recording this.

That’s a depressing trend, but it’s a worldwide one and we certainly aren’t the worst-off country – Belgians for example only get to celebrate on 6 August! Certainly food for thought for anyone thinking of emigrating. Have a look at Wikipedia here for some country-by-country comparisons.