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Zoho Analytics and Power BI for Dear Inventory
GrowthPath Analytics Connector for Dear Inventory
Connect Dear Systems to Zoho Analytics, Microsoft Power BI and other data warehouse tools for advanced reporting
The most advanced Dear Analytics connector available. This is a high-end product for sophisticated, larger Dear customers. It is live on sites with thousands of orders per day and with multiple multi-currency Dear instances.
Key Features
Powerful ETL layer for historical data cleanup and consistency across multiple Dears and legacy data
Support multiple Dear instances, converts different base currency to a common reporting currency
Built on GrowthPath Application Server, a robust and very high-volume Dear integration platform using parallel API connections and a sophisticated cache for high performance
Advanced tables offering critical reporting not possible with standard Dear endpoints as used by other data integrations.
Amazing Zoho Analytics data feed: rolling updates every two hours, automatic integrity checking, very high...
Read more: Zoho...
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Calculating the effect of price and mix changes on sales and margin
When a business sells products of different margin, price and cost, the mix of what you sell can affect results. It's worth understanding this. At least it can explain changes in a way you can diagnose. Targeting better mix needs a mix-effect KPI to drive profit growth. Here, we show you how to measure the mix effect. Please note that this is an advanced topic. There is a link to a spreadsheet showing how it works.
I learnt this technique from Richard Coppoolse when he was Pricing Officer for Philips Lighting at the global HQ in the Netherlands (He contributed to the text Innovation in Pricing)
These calculations are an example of a synthesised KPI, and do not qualify as a genuine business driver. Another example (also from Richard) is Purchase Efficiency, a KPI for measuring how well procurement is doing.
GrowthPath specialises in helping business use advanced metrics into customer and product profitability, and in adapting forecasting tools to use business drivers. This topic is an...
Read more: Calculating...
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Perpetual Inventory System vs Periodic Inventory System
Perpetual vs Periodic inventory systems
The Perpetual Inventory System is superior to the Periodic Inventory System: it provides gross margin of each invoice line and margins for each customer. You'll make better pricing, discounting and marketing decisions.
Read more: Perpetual...
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Measuring procurement: The Purchasing Efficiency KPI
Measuring procurement: The Purchasing Efficiency KPI
Purchasing Efficiency is a KPI to measure the performance of procurement.
Read more: Measuring...
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Cash vs Profit, and the reason for depreciation
Cash vs Profit: is Cash still King?
The best decision-making techniques emphasise cash flow, not profit, and the theory of company valuation is based on cash flows. What is the difference between cash and profit, and why is the profit technique so widely used for reporting?
Read more: Cash vs...
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Business Start Up Financials
Business Start Up Financials
Some notes on starting a business in Australia
Introduction
Who is this for?
This book is for people looking to start a small business who want to understand basic business financials and who want to make a useful but simple financial plan covering the first two years. It focuses on practical realities, such as what you need from the business to replace the job you are giving up.
This book is designed to
give you some important financial skills for running a small business
to produce a financial plan for the first two years of your new business.
Starting a business is much more than making a financial plan. This book touches on some of these additional topics, but it doesn't go into much detail about making the full business plan.
This book is sold as a bundle with a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is a practical, simple financial plan. Business financial plans can be high-level and long-term, but this one is short-term and detailed. It's designed to help you...
Read more: Business...
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Business drivers
The best way to use information to boost growth is to implement business drivers, a business measurement approach which goes way beyond traditional accounting.
Part of GrowthPath's Profit Engineering Essential Skills series
Read more: Business...
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Balanced Scorecards: a tool for growth
Mission and vision statements are ridiculous. If you agree, time to learn about the balanced score card for SMEs. An idea from the 1990s which is a genuine classic.
Read more: Balanced...
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Transforming the SME Finance Department: Part 1
This series is about SME finance teams that are capable of engaging with the business. It is an adapted version of articles from tim-richardson.net
Author: Tim Richardson.
In this article I will cover capabilities, flexibility, some tips on development ideas that scale to a small team and building the team: recruitment, and moving people out of the team. Obviously this is a very ambitious topic to cover in one article. Leadership styles and organisational culture are never the same, yet they have a huge impact on this topic.
Read more: Transforming...
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Business Plans to raise money for growth
Business Plans that don't explain business value are almost useless
GrowthPath business plans help unlock the funding and focus needed to grow your business.
Since 2008, Tim Richardson has been helping Australian businesses access money needed for growth. He also launch new businesses (and he teaches Small Business Management as a visiting trainer at the Holmesglen Business Enterprise Unit).
What is the key to GrowthPath's business planning success?
Our business plans focus on proving how your business will become valuable. The plan and the financial model are closely integrated. Our plans are customised to each specific business, and use comprehensive, objective market research. We clearly explain what makes your business special, and why it is hard to copy.
Our approach is a proven choice if you're looking to sell your business, raise funds for expansion or understand the best options for growth.
Each business is a special combination of a market opportunity and your unique way of...
Read more: Business...
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Contribution vs Gross Margin
Most businesses use the default settings from their accounting system which usually causes the gross margin to be reported too high. This causes profit leaks due to mistakenly under-quoting, over-spending on sales promotions and mistakes about understanding the true profit of different customers. This is one of the easiest mistakes to repair. A few simple tweaks is all it takes to fix the problem by moving to a correct margin.
This article discusses correctly identifying variable costs, and how to get contribution margin from your accounting system, be it MYOB, Saasu, Xero or QuickBooks.
Part of GrowthPath's Profit Engineering Essential Skills series
Read more: Contribution...
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When to welcome risk
A really good example of taking a decision about risk is currency risk. This risk is easy to measure, and easy to insure against via "hedging". Sometimes risk hedging throws away an opportunity to outperform competition. Risk hedging may cost more than you realise; for some businesses, currency risk can be turned to advantage. The profit of a businesses come from taking the right risks. This discussion of hedging currency risk is an illustration of how to decide to insure against a risk, or to turn into a source of profit.
Read more: When to...
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Goodbye Budgets
Goodbye budgets
"Budgets aren't what they used to be," one CFO told us for this month's cover story. At a growing number of companies, in fact, budgets have ceased to be at all." Why is that?
Read more: Goodbye Budgets
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Free shipping for online retailers: there's a right way, and a wrong way
Can free shipping generate a sustainable advantage for an online retailer? There are right ways and wrong ways to do free shipping ... backed by research.
Read more: Free shipping...
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Agility is not the same as being small
Agility is the ability to quickly respond to opportunity. Increasing business agility is a key part of achieving opportunity-based growth. SMEs are small and don't have large budgets to spend on business development. They can, however, become very agile.
Read more: Agility is...
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Why Business Plans and Business Valuation are inseparable
Bank and investors translate business ideas into cash-flows. You should view a business plan as a life-support mechanism for a set of financial projections. Keep this in mind, and your business plan will become powerfully credible.
Read more: Why Business...
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Good responses to surprises are better if they are fast
Fast, well informed decisions make money. But good decisions made too slowly can mean a lost opportunity.
Read more: Good...
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Strategic planning is over-rated; growth comes from seeing opportunity
US consultant Kaihan Krippendorff says "small businesses should scrap strategic planning" and we agree.
Read more: Strategic...
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Decision-making: engine-room of business growth
You can only spend a dollar once. Learn how decision-making techniques let small and medium sized businesses make the right business investment choices.
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What is Opportunity-based Growth?
Why does GrowthPath recommend the Opportunity-based approach to growth?
Most traditional approaches to business planning and strategy assume that you can predict the future and influence the environment. In fact, the real growth opportunity for flexible SMEs is taking advantage of surprises.
Read more: What is...
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Real-World Examples of Business Opportunities and Growth
Three places to find growth opportunities
1: within your current customer base.
2: optimize pricing and target new customers.
3: acquisitions .
Read more: Real-World...
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growth through focus and agility: the role of SME finance teams
Turning bean counters into gold
Business Growth and modern finance teams
SME finance teams should be driving the three elements of growth:
awareness of profitable opportunities
a fast response
the ability to finance growth through cashflow management
Read more: growth...