Case Study - How a Builder eliminated his paperwork and spent more time building. 

 Mark is the proud owner of a Construction Company based in Sydney and within the past 3 years of starting the business, Mark has doubled in size and has already developed a strong reputation within his local community.

Owning his own building business has been Mark's dream and he is very determine to have a successful business. 

Mark employees 2 other builders and currently thinking of getting and Apprentice. 

Problem 

Mark is very busy and booked out months in advance, however the bookkeeping and paper work has been a lot more work than he expected. 

Mark was feeling exhausted, working all day and then spending all night and weekends doing the accounts and paperwork. Mark was losing sleep and became anxious whenever he thought about his accounts. He didn't know if he was doing it correct or was missing anything important. 

Mark's main concerns were: 

• How much money did he owe the tax office?
• Was he doing the accounts correctly? 
• Did he understand the employee laws and paying his staff correctly? 
• What bills did he need to pay? 
• Was he making a profit? 

Solution 

Mark met with Derek Nolan of Twelve Chartered Accountants and talked about his concerns and worries. 

Derek asked Mark about his long term goals, where he saw himself in 5 years and if he wanted to expand the business and open more factories. 

By asking Mark these questions, Derek was able to have a greater understanding of Marks focus and his business ambitions which helped identify the best solution for Mark and his business. 

It soon became apparent that Mark was a creative person, who loved his business and had great determination. The more time Mark was to spend doing clerical and bookkeeping functions, the more it harmed the business and the more stressed Mark became. 

Recommendations 

Set up a cloud based accounting system with automatic bank feeds. 

Twelve Chartered Accountants to take over the bookkeeping and Payroll functions from Mark. No more entering invoices or calculating pay. 

Twelve Chartered Accountants to complete his accounts, payroll functions and Business Activity Statements. 

Complete a yearly budget and cash-flow and split this into quarters. This would mean that Mark would be able to see throughout the year, if he was making a profit or if he needed to make any changes. 

Twelve Chartered Accountants to meet with Mark on a regular basis to discuss how the business was going, help him understand financial reports (e.g. profit & loss) and help identify if any changes needed to me implemented in easy to understand manner. 

Mark's business was able to be benchmarked against other Building businesses, so Mark knew exactly how he was going. 

Mark to spend less time on Paperwork and more time with customers and training his employees. 

Outcome 

Within a few months of Mark following our recommendations, there was a significant improvement within the business and also with Mark. Mark was now more relaxed, but more importantly knows exactly how his business is performing. 

We are pleased so say that within the 12 months of working with Mark, we are now helping Mark, move to a larger factory. 

His dream is coming true. 

Whether you are in the building, sales, product or service industry many businesses have the same concerns with their paperwork. If you are in the same situation as Mark, call us on (02) 9524 2744 or email info@twelve.com.au to see how we can help you.