Do some benchmarking

The lovely people down at the Australian Taxation Office (seriously, they’re a great bunch down there) have recently invested a lot of time and effort into developing industry benchmarks that are great tools for start-ups to get a feel for the type of performance they should expect for their own business.

The benchmarks are mainly designed as tools for the ATO to see which businesses are perhaps not declaring the sort of income they should be (that is, a lot of cash is going under the table) or expenses they shouldn’t be, but start-ups should spend a bit of time examining the benchmark in their sector and comparing it to their business.

For example, if you are in the clothing retail sector, you can check the benchmark to get a feel for industry averages around gross profit ratios, rental cost ratios and wage cost ratios. It’s a great snapshot.

You can find the complete list of benchmarks here. They could well prompt a rethink of some parts of your business.

Get it done – today!