The holidays are indeed on their way! With only a week to go before Christmas and the New Year, it’s definitely the right time to make sure you and your business are as prepared as possible. Over the next month or so, you’ll face staffing issues, shortages, delays from suppliers, poor weather, reduced footfall and difficulties getting in touch with your clients. Of course, some of that is very heavily dependent on your industry, but at Time wise VA, we thought it would be good to provide some basic tips on how to improve your ability to cope, survive and come out fighting from the festive season.
At Time wise VA, we have over 30 years of experience in providing specialist support to our clients with their bookkeeping and finances, using tools like Xero and Receipt Bank. Our services have enabled our clients to focus on doing what they do best, and we love what we do too!
Make remote working simple during the Christmas holidays
Kicking us off nice and easy is this top tip – make it easier for you and your people to work from home. With traffic on the roads, children off school and the inevitability of disruption, it’s important to make it as convenient as possible to work from wherever you are. It would be easy to assume that post COVID, we’re all used to working this way and have a suitable workspace available. However – it’s worth making sure that everyone has everything they need.
Be sure that your cyber security is tip top
It probably won’t come as much of a surprise to many of you, but the number of cyber-attacks always increase over the Christmas period, so make sure that you do whatever you can to secure your data, website and email services. If you choose to work away from the safety of your office, check the security of your connection and work with a professional to tighten controls.
Take the time to plan
When the clients are away, the owners should…plan! It can be such a challenge to take time out of the business to work ON the business, but it is definitely a necessity. This becomes even more important as we creep closer to the New Year. Whether that’s because you’re planning to expand, hoping to try something different and simply want to be better organised, it’s worth taking a stock of how the business has been performing this year (and years past), where it could make improvements and how it can be even better next year. Having the up-to-date data from your accountant will enable you to make much better, more accurate plans for the future. It’s also a great opportunity to determine what isn’t working so well and how your business could be better balanced with the other aspects of your personal life too.
As always, we would love for you to get in touch if you think you could benefit with having the data to improve your ability to plan and grow in 2024. You can give us a call on 0161 211 9837 or complete our online form to find out more.
If you are feeling stressed about the weeks or months ahead, remember that support is available and try to reduce your pressure and stress where possible. We would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you for your support this year and wish you a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.