The Business Inspector is a 4 part series which is shown on Channel 5 on a Wednesday night at 8pm. The show is presented by Hilary Devey and began on Wed 17th March. Shows to follow are Wed 24th March, Wednesday 31st March and Wednesday 7th April.
Presenter Hilary Devey stated that ‘Britain’s brimming with creativity but a terrifying number of businesses go bust each year and this shouldn’t be happening. I am going to teach businesses how to improve their all round business knowledge and direction, cash flow, marketing strategy and in some cases even their enthusiasm. Invaluable lessons they will never forget.”
The HMRC sponsored the show as they recognised the effect that poor bookkeeping is having on the industry.
“We know that most small businesses want to get their tax right. But we also know too that failure to take reasonable care costs the Exchequer over £6bn a year, with a major cause being poor record keeping. We hope this series will raise awareness of the need for good record keeping.
In last weeks show Hilary Devey visited two small businesses to advise them on how to improve their processes, systems, strategy and direction. One of the businesses was a florist and the other was a company that specialised in table centrepieces.
The florist was struggling to make a profit each year and was funded by family members. It turns out that when Hilary looked at the books they were making a loss of approx £12,000 each year which was unknown to them.
The problem the business faced was when taking orders from customers they had not properly calculated the true cost of supplying the flowers, for example, they had not considered labour costs, fixed costs, etc.
When Hilary asked the ladies when their financial year ended they were clueless. She was appalled by their bookkeeping and told them how ‘irresponsible’ they had been.
Hilary introduced the ladies to a wedding venue in the area and they managed to secure a contract with the company. She also encouraged them to go to a bank and seek funding outside of the family.
The second business was a company that specialised in table centre pieces. Hilary like the product and thought the business would do well through setting up a franchise. The business owner was not confident on how to move forward and openly admitted he was scared of not having the knowledge and expertise required however he definitely had the passion. Hilary convinced the company to change the name of the business and they rebranded for a short time to ‘WOW centrepieces’ however shortly after they rebranded they decided to change the name again.
There is lessons to be learnt for all business owners who watch this series, tune in tonight.
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