The financial problem you’ve forgotten about
A colleague of mine had a leaky tap at home.
It drove him mad. Every day, that persistent drip… drip… drip reminded him it needed fixing.
He’d curse under his breath each morning whilst brushing his teeth. He’d mutter about it over dinner. And he even told us, here are work, that he really must sort it out.
But he never did.
There was always something more urgent. A work deadline. The kids’ football practice. A family get-together. Life, essentially.
In time, he simply got used to it. The leaky tap became background noise – still irritating, but tolerable. Something he’d learned to live with.
I thought about my colleague recently when employers’ national insurance came up on Radio 4.
It’s now been 11 months since Rachel Reeves announced she was raising employers’ NI contributions – and four months since it hit your payroll.
Back then, you were rightly concerned. This would squeeze your margins, damage your bottom line. You probably spent sleepless nights working out the numbers, wondering how you’d absorb the extra costs.
But here’s the thing: depending on how many people you employ, it’s still hitting you every single month. That extra burden is still there, quietly eating into your profits.
Yet most businesses have simply… adjusted. Swallowed the impact. Never revisited the problem or explored ways to mitigate it properly.
Just like the leaky tap.
This got me thinking: how many other business problems were keeping you awake six months ago? And how many are still there today – festering away in the background because you’ve been too busy firefighting to address them properly?
Cast your mind back to March. What financial challenges were weighing on you then?
- Cash flow that was tighter than you’d like?
- Margins that weren’t quite where they needed to be?
- Management accounts that arrived too late to be useful?
- Financial forecasting that felt more like guesswork?
- VAT planning that you kept meaning to optimise?
Be honest: Have these issues really disappeared? Or have you simply learned to tolerate them?
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: just because you’ve pushed a problem to the bottom of your to-do list doesn’t mean it’s stopped costing you money.
That financial inefficiency is still there. Those missed opportunities are still slipping through your fingers. The lack of proper financial insight is still hampering your decision-making.
Like my colleague’s leaky tap, these problems are causing damage in the background – even when you’re not consciously thinking about them.
The good news? We’re approaching the end of summer. For many businesses, this brief lull offers a rare opportunity to tackle those festering financial issues before the autumn rush begins.
This is your chance to:
- Drag those buried problems back into the light
- Assess the real cost of ignoring them
- Put proper systems in place to solve them once and for all
I know they’re easier to ignore. These financial challenges feel intimidating and complex. You’re not sure where to start, what the implications might be, or whether you’ll make things worse by tinkering with them. And there’s no one to guide you through it or ensure it actually gets done.
That’s where Insight Associates comes in.
As your outsourced finance department, we can help you tackle financial problems that feels too intimidating to deal with alone.
We provide the expertise to untangle these problems, the systems to solve them properly, and crucially, the ongoing support to ensure they stay solved rather than simply patched up.
Whether it’s implementing proper cash flow forecasting, getting management information that actually helps you make decisions or cutting your expenses – we’re there to ensure it happens.
Oh, and my colleague with the leaky tap? He finally fixed it. After two years of tolerating the constant drip, he called a plumber and had it sorted in 20 minutes.
“Why on earth did I wait so long?” he asked me afterwards.
Don’t let it take you two years to fix your financial leaks.
Ready to get your financial management under control?
Contact Insight Associates today. Let’s have a conversation about the financial issues you’ve been tolerating – and how we can help you solve them properly.
Email us at info@insightassociates.co.uk or call 01279 647447 to arrange a no-obligation consultation with me or with one of our specialists.
Your future self will thank you for not waiting any longer.
Warmly,
Garry
