It’s often said that building financial wealth isn’t a function of how much you earn, but how well you manage it.

If you want to consider how to build your wealth, chances are you could use a little guidance, so here are some strategies that a financial adviser can talk you through to help you make the most of your hard earned cash.

Streamline your budget
With so much focus on direct deposits and cashless payments, it doesn’t take long to become separated from how much you earn and spend.
A financial adviser can show you how tracking what you spend will not only help you understand where your money is going but, more importantly, where the leaks are.
After they help you revise your budget and start directing your money into what is necessary and important to you, you will be amazed at how quickly your financial situation can improve.

Build up an emergency fund
A good rule of thumb is to always have three months’ worth of living expenses set aside for emergencies.
Given this could take some time to build up, a financial adviser can help you decide on a realistic savings goal – taking into account some inevitable slip ups along the way!
Having an emergency fund in place not only makes good financial sense, it also gives you peace of mind that you have money available should something unexpected happen.

Start an investment plan
Investing small amounts regularly is one of the easiest ways to save for what you want in life – an overseas holiday, a new car, a deposit on your first home or your children’s education.
After reviewing your situation, a financial adviser can show you how much you have available to invest and what is most appropriate for you to invest in, based on your risk profile.
Even if you start with just $100 per month, it won’t take long before you start seeing your investment building up nicely.
Having this amount taken out of your salary as soon as you get paid means you will soon get used to living without it.

Get cost-effective insurance
Many people don’t have enough insurance to protect themselves, or their family, because they believe it is too expensive.
A financial adviser can show you a number of ways to get appropriate cover, one of which involves taking out life insurance within your superannuation fund.
Having your premiums paid by the contributions and earnings within your super fund means your insurance cover will not impact your day-to-day cashflow.
Plus, you may also get access to a ‘group policy’ by doing it this way too, which often gives you better value cover than what you would receive by taking out insurance on your own.
No matter what the cost of insurance or how you structure it, you cannot argue the value of protecting your lifestyle and your loved ones. You may just need guidance on the most cost-effective way to do so.

We’re here to help
Managing your finances and implementing strategies to build your wealth can be confusing, time consuming and for many of us…a bit boring!
But with a little guidance, it can be a very fulfilling experience.
A qualified financial adviser has a range of tools and strategies that can help you stay in control of your finances and make the most of what you have.

They will work with you to focus on what is important to you and the options available.
Get in touch and let’s sort out your cashflow, it could be the most useful meeting you have this year!
Contact our office today and make an appointment with one of our professional financial advisers.

*John Flanagan is an Authorised Representative of RI Advice Group Pty Limited (ABN 23 001 774 125), AFSL 238429. This editorial does not consider your personal circumstances and is general advice only. It has been prepared without taking into account any of your individual objectives, financial solutions or needs. Before acting on this information you should consider its appropriateness, having regard to your own objectives, financial situation and needs. You should read the relevant Product Disclosure Statements and seek personal advice from a qualified financial adviser. From time to time we may send you informative updates and details of the range of services we can provide. If you no longer want to receive this information please contact our office to opt out. The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author; they are not reflective or indicative of Licensee’s position, and are not to be attributed to the Licensee. They cannot be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of the author.

‘The future of retail relies on the shifting sands of consumer technologies, keeping up with the trends will dictate any retailer’s success.’- Simon Banks (Director of Merchant Service, Paypal Australia).

At the moment, Xero offers the opportunity to spend less time working on the books and more time on growing your retail business. Xero integrates with 48 different ‘add-ons’. Those ecosystem add-ons focus on three aspects:

• Point of Sale - automatically sync your sales data into Xero
• Inventory - make managing inventory and orders easy in real-time
• eCommerce - spend more time growing your online store and less time managing your finances.

Do you want to find out more about Xero ecosystems? CMS Strategic invites you to attend our seminar (20th October 16:00 pm @ Level 4, 190 Flinders Street, Adelaide) which helps you to find out how your business can streamline processes and increase productivity leading to time savings, cost savings and improved accessibility and functionality.

Topics covered:
- Xero ecosystems
- Cloud software
- Streamlining your bookkeeping
- Introduction to Class Super

Please register your attendance for free at:
www.cmscloudlaunch.eventbrite.com.au

If you can’t attend our seminar, the following Xero video - ‘A Day in the Life of a Retail Business’ is using a day in the life scenario. You'll see the workflow of a store and how one business owner addressed pressing needs through Vend and Deputy. These solutions start with seamless, synced data across applications – which delivers time savings in Xero.

https://www.xero.com/us/training/small-business/going-further/xero-ecosystem--a-day-in-the-life-of-a-retail-business/

The accounting revolution is in full swing with a tsunami of technology bringing productivity efficiencies and gains and allowing business to have real time data to make real time decisions anywhere, anytime.

So what does the accounting journey look like: Let us share with you some highlights

• The stone age – stones were exchanged for goods and people kept track of their expenses by counting their
stones
• Egyptian times – we moved to the wonderful device called the Abacus to help us count (it would be used a
children’s toy now)
• In 1883 the first cash register was patented – revolutionary to it’s core and helped businesses track
sales
• We jump to the 1960’s where the first electronic calculator was born (and still used today and carried
with us every day through our smart phones). Together with the calculator, cashbooks, ledgers and
receipts were used prevalently in the mid to late 1900’s to account for sales and expenses
• The 1990’s and beyond saw desktop based computer software takeover and with it a huge lift in the in the
sophistication of businesses to be able them to prepare their own financial reports & BAS (with the help
of a bookkeeper or accountant of course)
• Which leads us from the year 2000 to now where a tsunami of technological change has brought us CLOUD
accounting technologies where businesses can use a cloud platform such as Xero (Beautiful Accounting
Software) and then ‘Add on’ to customise the full suite for their business including point of sale,
inventory, HR, receipts, management reporting, CRM and the list goes on.

Businesses are now able to create their own CLOUD ECOSYSTEMS to run their business efficiently and productively. These technologies enable:
1. Seamless integration so items are processed only once improving reliability
2. Automation removing the bulk of processing saving time
3. Cost efficiencies as you are only paying for what you need via a monthly subscription with little to no
hardware costs
4. Accessibility benefits as you can access your data anywhere, anytime in REAL TIME to enable you to make
real time DECISIONS.

What a revolution! Is your business keeping up with the technological changes? At CMS Strategic | Cloud Solutions we can help you. Why don’t you call us today.

Isn’t it interesting to see the evolution of Memory Storage. As the decades have gone by the size of the memory storage device has decreased and the size of the memory storage has drastically increased.

• It all started with Inventor, S. Korsakov first creating the Punch Card in the 1830’s
• 120 years later and we moved to Magnetic Tape in the mid 1900’s
• It took another 70 years to progress to the creation of the Floppy Disc in the 1970’s
• Some 20 years later and the 1990’s brought us the Compact Disc (CD) – how revolutionary!
• We then moved quickly with a big jump in technology advancement to the invention of the USB & SD card in
the very early 2000’s (that stands for Universal Serial Bus and Secure Digital cards – don’t worry, we
didn’t know what they stood for either!).
• Now, in the year 2016, we have well and truly leaped into the world of Cloud storage (the next evolution
of the internet)

The cloud is where you put all your data, all your files and even your software so you can access it all from any computer or device, anywhere, anytime. Whether you know it or not you are already using the cloud through email, online banking, social media, Netflix, Youtube and the list goes on.

The rapid improvement of storage devices through reduction in size and increase in volume coupled with decreased cost and increased accessibility has picked up pace very quickly. Most of our children wouldn’t know what a Floppy Disk was! What will be next???

Technology advancements have now become mainstream and expected and technology moves quickly. It is quite easy to be using outdated technology in your business that you may have implemented a few years ago, but if you don’t keep up with the digital disruption then you will be left behind and we can assure you that your competitors are keeping up to try to find a competitive advantage.

CMS Strategic | Cloud Solutions is well versed on current technologies that can help your business. Why not contact us today to find out more so you don’t get left behind!