Reading a seasonal year without panicking in February

Growth rings across a cut trunk

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A seasonal business is not an unstable one. It only looks unstable if you keep measuring it against last month.

Compare with the same month last year

February against January says nothing useful about a business whose customers buy in summer. February against last February says everything. This one change removes most of the anxiety and none of the information.

Use a rolling twelve months for everything else

A twelve-month total moves slowly and turns down only when something is genuinely wrong, which is exactly what you want from the figure you check when you are worried.

Budget the quiet months from the loud ones

Work out what the slow half of the year costs to run, and treat that as money already committed the moment the busy season money arrives. It is the same discipline as the tax pot, applied to time instead of to tax.

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