Learnings from the financial year: BizCore 360

Business

Promoted by GoCardless.

Launceston-based BAS agent Tamara-Lee Beveridge decided to take the leap and start her own firm, BizCore 360 in April 2018. We spoke to Tamara-Lee about her biggest learnings from this financial year.

Promoted by GoCardless 1 minute read

BizCore 360 offer Accounting, Payroll, Business Activity Statements (BAS) and Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) services to clients, who include a mix of sole traders, small companies and trusts. Being her own boss has been rewarding, says Tamara-Lee, but not without its challenges.

Soon after setting up the business, like many small business owners, Tamara-Lee found that a lot of her time was being spent following up with clients and asking for payment on work that had already been completed. This added to Tamara-Lee’s already heavy workload, not to mention the pressure of running her own business.

“While it was exciting to have my own business, it was also stressful and awkward chasing and following up on late payments with my clients. As an accounts specialist, I’m well aware of how important cash flow is to a business, so receiving late payments from clients was certainly not great for my own business."

Tamara-Lee started looking at Bank Debit (bank-to-bank Direct Debit) as a way to streamline the payments process and make sure that payments were received on time. Tamara-Lee says: 

“The best investment I made in my business this financial year, was implementing GoCardless for Xero. The admin and debt collection time I was previously spending that GoCardless has now saved me, I have reinvested back into my business. Spending more time on my clients and growing my business.“

With GoCardless, payments are collected from clients’ accounts each time they are due, saving Tamara-Lee 2-3 hours a week on admin – and reducing the stress associated cash collection. Tamara-Lee explains: 

Since implementing GoCardless, I sleep better at night and I’m now able to look ahead to the next stage of my business, which is growing it.” 

Tamara-Lee is using the learnings from BizCore’s first year to drive the business forward. She says:

“Our clients are our business, but sometimes we forget that we are also our business. We must value ourselves, invest in our own business, back ourselves with the same gusto that we look after our clients.” 

“Learning to balance the two, and not to accept to be treated less, than we would want for our own clients or employees. This was a huge learning curve for me this year, it meant making some difficult decisions, but worthwhile ones, that re-focused my attention with positive outcomes,” she adds. 

Read the full story on the GoCardless website.