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Unit 11, 61 Flynn St, Wembley, WA, 6014
08 9242 2085

Yearly Archives: 2018

Improve Your Board Induction Process

Improve Your Board Induction Process
As an Indigenous Corporation incorporated under the CATSI Act, or even if you chose to incorporate under the Corporations Act or remain as an Association, you will have a Board with serious responsibilities and an important role in the governance of your corporation. From time to time, your Board members will change, or new ones are admitted. How do you handle their induction, if at all? Inducting an employee is an accepted process, and you probably have written procedures and some process to nominate a mentor to take them through their job responsibilities and introduce them to colleagues and so on. Yet, when it comes to Board members, many corporations leave it to the new inductee to learn about how it's done all by themselves! You are doing well if you have a Directors' Board file with copies of the Rulebook or Constitution and previous Minutes, and welcome the new member with an informal coffee before you hand over a pile of reading. But we are all busier than ever today and often a new Board member may not be fully exposed to what the Board does. (more…)...
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12 Strategies To Survive Any Downturn

12 Strategies To Survive Any Downturn
As a small business, we feel the downturn in the economy much more keenly than any large business. Generally, small businesses have less capital behind them, less reserves. Small businesses find it hard to "hang on" until the upturn because their volumes and margins are tighter. But it is possible for any small business to survive any downturn if they follow a series of common sense business strategies. These strategies are common sense strategies that you should be using no matter what the economic climate, but sadly when times are good businesses allow themselves to get “fat” and some of these every-day disciplines are allowed to slacken. The strategies are both defensive and "offensive" strategies. When times are tight and profit and cash performance are poor, it is difficult not to panic and look to tighten all the hatches defensively.  However, you can tighten activity too much and turn defensive strategies into a downward spiral for the business.  While it is natural to concentrate on the defensive strategies such as cutting costs, it is important to keep in mind what I call "offensive" strategies – initiatives that your business should undertake to ensure that you are the one that keeps selling when others are closing...
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Managing Conflicts of Interest

Managing Conflicts of Interest
Directors of a corporation incorporated under the Corporations Act and the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act have a duty to avoid conflicts of interest. This duty is derived from statutory provisions, as well as common law, and this duty requires Directors to exercise their powers and discharge their duties with reasonable care and diligence, act in good faith in the best interests of the corporation, not use their position to gain an advantage for themselves or a third party, and not to improperly use information gained through their position to obtain an advantage for themselves, a third party, or to cause a detriment to the corporation. (more…)...
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6 Steps To Improve Your Finance Functions

6 Steps To Improve Your Finance Functions
Your finance functions those functions in your business that look after your finances. They include all your book-keeping and record-keeping as well as sales and buying functions. Often small businesses leave everything to one person - a book-keeper, or perhaps the business owner "keeping the books" after hours. Yet, efficient finance functions save you money and provide all the early warning information that could move your business from also-ran to successful. Here are 7 ways to improve the performance of your finance functions. 1. Set a goal Set a goal of what you want to achieve. What do you want to be done and when by? What reports do you want to be produced and how often? Which parts need improvement and by how much? There is no point in starting to improve your finance functions without knowing what you want to do. 2. Look at all your finance functions Don't just restrict your reviews to one part. Keep an open mind and look at all finance functions to see what can be improved. For example, if you restricted your review of improvements to debtor collection, you might miss the fact that customers are paying late because the customer sign on process doesn't effectively discuss payment terms. 3. Take the...
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OTS Management