Ways to Grow Your Business in 2012: Track Busy and Slow Periods to Forecast Future Revenues

Taking care of your business means many things, but don’t forget that keeping track of your busy and slow periods will allow you to forecast future revenues, and give you an idea of when you will be busy and when you will be slow.

Advantages to forecasting are that you will be able to stock up on products that you might otherwise be sold out of, and be able to take advantage of bulk purchase discounts leading to more profit. If you hire help you will also be able to track when your employee expenses might be higher and when you might need temporary employees, or might need to increase the hours of the part timers working for you, or simply schedule more hours for yourself.

Also when planning vacations it is best to let your employees know what time periods are expected to be busy and which ones are expected to be slow. This will help them and you. Being gone during a very busy period for someone who works on commission or on a percentage of income can be financially harmful to your employees, so they will appreciate knowing what vacation times are the least profitable, as will you.

Keeping track of busy and slow times should be a part of your natural record keeping. You keep track of income and expenses for tax purposes. Making sure that your bookkeeper or site manager also keeps track of the number of clients you have and of the types of treatments they prefer will help. It will also assist you in marketing efforts. You’ll be able to see what areas are most profitable and which areas should be promoted more.

Your methods in this day and age will probably be computerized. Many software programs are available to keep track of customers including what they spent, who they saw, and what treatment options those chose. These programs generally integrate with your accounting, checking and tax preparation software as well as your tickler file for sending appointment reminders and your mailing list database. But even if you don’t use a computer and software for this purpose, just keeping track in a notebook puts you ahead of the game and allows you to make these basic business decisions. Taking care of business means knowing where you are at financially and forecasting will help you in this area.