Cash Flow tip – Sales Insights from your Accounting Software
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Published on Thursday, 31 October 2024 12:00
Your accounting software provides valuable insights you can gain about your sales & customers, beyond its typical functions, such as preparing for the end of the financial year, handling payroll, managing leave and superannuation, calculating GST automatically and generating profit and loss and cash flow reports to assess your financial standing. It also facilitates online invoicing to streamline payment processes.
Your best clients
Gaining insight into your clients' behaviours is crucial for achieving business success. Your financial records can offer a comprehensive understanding of your customers, including identifying your top clients, their spending habits, the products or services they prefer, their payment reliability and peak sales periods. This information can enhance your sales strategies and improve cash flow.
Identifying Your Top Clients
By generating sales reports, you can pinpoint who your most valuable clients are, what they purchase and how much they spend. For instance, a sales report can reveal the sales volume for each client. You can also create more in-depth reports that detail every item or service sold, as recorded in invoices or receipts. These reports offer various options to analyze the data further and align it with your business goals.
The Importance of Knowing Your Best Clients
It's commonly stated that 80% of your revenue typically comes from just 20% of your clients, known as the 80/20 or Pareto principle. Additionally, it's often significantly cheaper - up to five to seven times - to sell to existing clients than to acquire new ones. By leveraging this knowledge, you can specifically target your top clients for upselling, cross-selling, promotions, discounts and reminders. Providing excellent customer service and proactive marketing will help maintain strong cash flow and encourage repeat business. Furthermore, understanding your best clients and their purchasing patterns allows you to effectively market to similar demographics, ensuring a more focused and efficient sales and marketing strategy.
Identifying Your Most Popular Products or Services
By analyzing the sales data in your accounting software, you can gain a clear understanding of which of your offerings perform the best. Running reports on item sales will reveal valuable historical data. If a particular product or service stands out in terms of sales, it’s essential to focus your marketing and sales efforts on promoting these top performers. Conversely, you can also identify your least valuable offerings based on client purchasing behaviour, allowing you to phase out these items and concentrate on those that provide higher value.
Understanding Payment Behaviour
A crucial element of client knowledge involves accounts receivable, which refers to the money owed to you by clients, typically in the form of unpaid invoices. If you've issued invoices for services rendered but have not received payment, this represents your accounts receivable. By generating accounts receivable reports through your accounting software, you can identify your best and worst-paying customers. This information can inform your future invoicing strategies and help you determine which clients require closer attention.
Creating an Accounts Receivable Ageing Report
You can generate an aging report within your accounting software to categorize accounts receivable based on how long they have been outstanding. For example, these reports often classify debts into categories like '30-60 days overdue' and '60-90 days overdue.' By analyzing an aging report, you can identify clients who need follow-up, assess their financial health and recognize those who consistently pay promptly. This knowledge may lead you to relax credit terms for reliable clients while tightening them for those who pay late, potentially requiring down payments or stricter terms for future transactions.
Identifying Optimal Sales Periods
By examining sales data in your accounting software, you can gain insights into your peak and off-peak sales periods. If certain days of the week or months attract more clients, you can utilize this information in several ways:
- Concentrate your marketing efforts during these peak times to maximize sales;
- Encourage sales during slower periods by offering attractive promotions or incentives;
- Use quieter times to focus on other business activities, such as launching new campaigns.
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