What
A quarterly review to review your current finances, tracking against your objectives, and keeping on top of your accounting.
Why
It’s easy to focus just on doing the work, but running a business requires you to keep an eye on administration and goals too.
Putting a quarterly review in place is a great way to check your progress, review your finances, update your accounting, and reflect on your goals.
Once every three months is a good cadence. You can choose to do something more often if you’d like - but don’t leave reviewing your business any longer than three months.
Establish a standard process for your quarterly review, so you know what you need to do each three months.
What should be part of your quarterly review?
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Update your Accounts: Ahead of your quarterly review to update your bank balances, reconcile your expenses, tally up your income, and estimate any tax liabilities. Use this time to update any record keeping, so you have an accurate picture of your business.
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Review your Progress: How are you tracking against your financial objectives and goals you’ve set for yourself? Are you ahead or behind of where you need to be? How many projects have you delivered? How many conversations have you had? What actions do you need to take to get on track, or do you need to update your objectives?
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Review your Pipeline: How health is your marketing and new business activity? How many conversations have you had, and are you building positive engagement? Do you need to do anything more or different next quarter?
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Review your Worries: What concerns have you captured in the last three months? Is there anything in the next three months you’re worried about, or need to tackle?
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Review your Wins: What successes are you proud of? What did you acheive, and what have you learned?
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Review your Wellbeing: How are you feeling emotionally? Are you still motivated? Are you taking time to look after yourself? Do you have any gaps in your support network you want to close?
This is just our suggestion of a starting point or structure - adapt this to your needs, or use it as a starting point to create your own.
How
1/ Get your accounts and records in order - so you have an accurate picture of your business and finances.
2/ Put aside some solid time to hold your quarterly review - consider writing it up into a one pager, so you can keep track of your reviews over time.
3/ Make sure to link your review to your business plan and goals - if you’re not reviewing how you’re progressing against your goals, it’s hard to know if you’re being successful or not.
4/ Once you’ve reviewed your position - create some clear actions for the next three months, and make them SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound).
5/ Consider sharing with a mentor or a trusted fellow freelancer - holding review sessions with other can help you ensure you get it done, can provide useful feedback, and help you hold yourself accountable.
