Jeremy Tauri: Get business ready for the holidays

Jeremy Tauri.

I'm reminded that there's nearly less than a month to Christmas and in the home run, some of us are looking forward to a break in the sunshine with family.

If it's your first year in business, bad news. Taking a break isn't so straightforward. Here's some planning you need to think about.

Planning your business shutdown — Do you know when your team is coming back? And what skeleton services might be on offer or need to be on offer for clients while they are away? If you do, let your customers know how things will run over the break.

Just a brief email or contact can help ensure your phone is clear over Christmas. Things like payroll can be planned for as well if you can get your team to plan their leave and who can cover what services.

Do you have access from home? Worst case you may need to check a few administrative things while you're away. Some people don't like to have access to their business files but I do, I can remote into work and we have cloud applications as well.

Check the finances — In accounting and finance it's demands right up to 4pm Christmas Eve. After that it all mysteriously shuts down for a couple of weeks. Knowing this, make sure you've organised finance where you need to.

Do you need some overdraft facility to cover the holiday pays and rent while you're away? If you haven't done the sums of what's coming out over the break — make sure you do them because it's going to be near impossible to organise cashflow cover on Christmas Eve.

The work Christmas function — Whether or not it's an elaborate function or a barbecue at someone's house, you'll have a responsibility to make sure that people are safe. If there are drinks, make sure there are alcohol-free options and you'll need to provide some food. It also pays to plan and discuss how people will go home as well, which might mean a van or taxis.

Start some goal-setting for the new year — the quiet time around Christmas is a good time to appraise how the year has gone and what you'd like to achieve over the next 12 months.