January isn’t just about resolutions and fresh calendars. For service businesses, it’s the perfect time to hit reset on your finances and set up for a year of growth, clarity, and confidence.

Growing a team is exciting, but it comes with its own set of challenges. Cash flow being one of them. While your revenue might be climbing, the gap between invoicing clients and actually receiving payment can create serious problems when you've got salaries to pay, software subscriptions to maintain, and operational costs multiplying.

At LJM Bookkeeping we come across many business owners who have been doing their bookkeeping themselves and got themselves into a right mess. When you first start out in business it may seem logical to keep everything in house. Do whatever you can yourself, to keep outgoing costs to a minimum. However, this is where many business owners trip up!

When you first started your business, doing your own bookkeeping probably made perfect sense. You knew every transaction, every client, and every expense by heart. A simple spreadsheet or basic accounting software seemed like all you needed. But as your business grows, that DIY approach that once served you well can quickly become your biggest bottleneck.

When your business hits the £1 million turnover mark, congratulations are in order – but so is a reality check about your finance function. The accounting software that has no capabilities of integrations just isn’t going to cut it anymore. The approach that got you this far won't sustain the growth ahead. It's time to build a finance function that scales with your ambitions, not against them.