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It’s important to give your business a financial health check at least once a year so you know how it’s performing. 

Reviewing and analysing your finances will help you:

  • run your business more efficiently
  • understand your potential for growth
  • make better business decisions.

Review your financial documents

Review and analyse your main financial documents regularly. These include your:

Look for any trends or things that are unusual, as these could be areas you need to work on to save money or increase sales. Things to look out for include:

  • falling sales
  • low profit margins
  • more spending than you budgeted for
  • the amount of existing debt
  • periods of high or low cash flow.

Benchmark your business against others

Benchmarking lets you compare your financial performance against similar businesses.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) publishes small business benchmarks so you can find out if you’re in the benchmark range for your industry. This information can help you decide if you need to make any changes to your business.

Business viability assessment tool

The ATO has a free tool to help you check the health of your business finances.

You’ll need to input your financial figures for at least 3 months. The tool gives you a report on your finances and your business's viability.

Use the tool

Value your business

Working out how much your business is worth can be an important part of reviewing your business and assessing its viability.

There are several ways you can value your business. You can get professional advice to help you decide which one is right for you.

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