How to Increase Business Revenue by 16 Percent

By | December 17, 2014

Here is an interesting article that was published in Accountants, Bookkeepers, Company News in Xero’s blog post on 08 October 2014 by Sharna Brockett.

Wondering how to increase business revenue for your small business? Here’s a key tip – hire an accounting professional and use Xero.

This is what we learned from a survey we distributed to more than 300 small businesses (SMBs) in the US that use Xero.

The data showed that:

  • Employing an accounting professional pays off:  SMBs who use an accounting professional with Xero experienced a 16 percent increase in revenue over businesses that do not work with an accounting professional but use Xero.
  • Using two accounting professionals equals more revenue: When SMBs pair an outside accounting professional with an internal one and use Xero, they increase the prior mentioned revenue gains by 50 percent. This means a 24 percent increase in revenue vs. 16 percent when working with only one accountant.

The survey also showed that SMBs are experiencing growth in 2014 and increased business confidence heading into 2015.

  • Growth in 2014: More than 80 percent of SMBs grew revenue in the past year with 22 percent growing more than 100 percent.
  • Optimistic for 2015: And this is expected to continue into 2015.  Nearly 90 percent of survey respondents forecast they’ll increase business revenue, with 21 percent expecting to grow more than 100 percent.

Other stats show that while SMBs are mainly satisfied, those SMBs that take risks are making more money today and expect to grow even more in 2015.

  • Satisfaction: 87 percent are content to extremely satisfied with how their business is performing.
  • Risky business: 68 percent of small businesses never or only occasionally take a risk while 32 percent will almost always take a risk.
  • Nothing ventured, nothing gained: These risk takers have experienced a 49 percent growth in revenue over the last 12 months vs. 43 percent for non or occasional risk takers.
  • Glass half full: Risk taking SMBs are also more optimistic, forecasting 63 percent growth over the next 12 months vs. 51 percent for those who are risk averse.

Survey methodology

A survey conducted online to 304 small business owners that use Xero online accounting software in the US. The survey was conducted on behalf of Xero by Radius Global Market Research in late March/early April 2014.

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