First, why not take our short quiz to find out how financially fit you actually are.

Get your finances in shape

These practical steps will quickly see you go from bronze to gold in terms of your financial fitness.

Use a financial management system – get a system in place so you know exactly what’s coming in and going out and can see your company’s financial position at a glance. Your system should:

• Record all income e.g. invoices, daily takings, etc.
• Record all outgoings e.g. invoices received, expenses, etc.
• Report on key areas of the business

Regularly review outstanding invoices – make sure your system reminds you or allows you to see instantly who owes you money, how much and when it was due. Letting late invoices slide can be disastrous for your cashflow. Consistently late payments can also be a sign that a customer is having their own cashflow problems. If so, you don’t want to be at the back of their queue of debtors.

Save money where possible – running a lean operation will boost your cashflow. Saving on overheads and costs doesn’t mean skimping or compromising on quality but it pays to be prudent. Make sure you regularly review costs such as utilities, phone, stationery and postage. Think about areas you’re overspending and areas where you could get a better deal.

Learn from your mistakes – with the best will in the world, things will still go wrong when you’re running a business. Make sure you learn from any finance mistakes and act upon what you’ve learned so you don’t make the same mistake twice.

Financial fitness workshops

Intuit, the maker of QuickBooks accounting software, has announced a series of financial fitness workshops that will provide hands-on practical training to help get businesses financially fit and set them up for long-term success.

Intuit will initially run events in three cities - Liverpool, to time with the Global Entrepreneur Congress in March 2012, Sheffield, in advance of the MADE Festival, the UK's premier business festival for entrepreneurs, and Manchester.

The events will support the new Finance Fitness campaign launched by the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, last week.

These follow a series of financial fitness workshops run by Intuit this week at the Business Startup Show as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week.

This practical training, delivered in conjunction with BCSG, will cover the basics of good record keeping, how to track and improve cash flow, as well as save time on everyday tasks such as invoicing, expenses and calculating and reporting VAT.

They’ll cover:

•       Knowing what records to keep and staying on top of it all

•       Managing cash flow

•       Getting customers to pay on time

•       Dealing with VAT and taxes

•       Getting organised for end of year filing

We’ll keep you updated with more details as they become available.