Enjoying a safer workplace is inthe interests of workers, employers and the wider community. A bad workplace safety record imposes costs , not just on the company, but also broadly across the community

Globally it has been estimated that the costs of unsatisfactory safety at work adds to an estimated 1.25 thousand million US dollars annually. Even more devastating is the 2 million people who died as a result of work.

For US industry it’s been estimated, for every dollar spent in workplace safety, they get three back - a safety culture pays good returns.

With improving workplace safety, there is a standard methodology of surveying hazards, reducing identified hot spot risks and then taking behavioral measures for the irreducible risks . Those safer work practices need to be implemented in the organization and are a source of continual reinforcement once safety signs mark the safety hot spots. By themselves they don’t make a safer place to work – they just reinforce all the other actions

With the many types of safety signs for all situations for simplicity they have had to be organized into groups around their severity . We’ve all seen the Danger signs that pin point the most serious risks, then there are Caution signs, followed by the Stop and finally Notice signs , the last two groups being mainly of an informational nature.

As our desire is to have the biggest benefit improving on safety, we’ll just look at the Danger and Caution health and safety signs here. 

Caution signs mark safety hot spots where precautions of the type indicated in the sign need to be taken to avoid human injury or damage to business assets and/or the environment. Caution signs have a yellow background with a black print for contrast and good visibility.

A workplace caution sign’s safety message needs to be effective so as to reduce the prevalence of injuries at work.

The danger safety sign is used where a serious threat to life is present and failure to observe this sign will have serious consequences: perhaps even death. These signs are limited to the most extreme safety hot spots and are often found in manufacturing - industrial situations, where chemicals, heavy machinery and similar industrial hazards are prevalent.

Knowing the benefits of safety at work, safety signs and their messages act to make workplaces safe. 

If you own a business, you cannot avoid processing payroll. Employees must be paid and the government wants its share. The average business owner is not a money guru, so the prospect of payroll is not something you look forward to.

The biggest cost that a lot of entrepreneurs have is the cost of employees, and it is frequently the reason of most angst. Regardless of how many employees work for you, you have a legal responsibility to ensure that payroll is completed accurately and on time. Since payroll can be a large burden, a lot of businesses make the decision to make use of payroll solutions to ease the burden.

Payroll is an emotional point for all parties. An employee anticipates payday and can get quite frustrated if there is an issue with getting paid. Companies often worry about finishing the payroll process correctly and the problems that errors can cause.

Getting paid is something the average employee anticipate greatly, but can be something that can cause much angst for businesses. Anytime payday comes around, there is a person who is required to devote a good deal of time going over monotonous computation because the payroll must be totally perfect.

We cannot forget about the task of filling out the reports that the state and federal governments requires and ensuring taxes are paid. One mistake here and you might wind up in a bad place as the taxman comes knocking on your door. Payroll requires a lot of effort, and you certainly would welcome any assistance you can get to ensure it is done correctly.

If you don’t look forward to payroll, you might want to look into using a payroll solutions. These services can take care of the monotonous work involved for payroll, and can reduce the time spent completing payroll to minutes.

The people working for you don’t care about the headaches you have cutting their paychecks. They only care about receiving a paycheck, so you may just be better off finding a service to make the process of running payroll easier.

Cutting paychecks is something that all companies have to deal with. Though the entire payroll process can be a meticulous and unnerving process, it doesn’t need to be. Take advantage of the available payroll processing services to turn payroll into a process that is enjoyable.

If you should improve your net profit in the next quarter with 10-15%, what si going to happen to your cash?

By Christo van Huyssteen, Bizrite Business Advice Services

Scenario

The managing director has just received the latest quarterly financials. During his review he notices that the net profit for the last quarter increased by 15%. Believing his company is doing excellently, he continues with his daily work.

Three months later he gets a rather worrying phone call from the bank notifying him that his company has defaulted on loan payments. Two hours later he receives another phone call, this time from a creditor, demanding immediate payment.

In a state the managing director summons his accountant, who informs him that they have exceeded their overdraft and that there is no money to pay their agreements, their creditors and soon their employees.

Cash flow defined

Lot of people think that cash flow can be defined as revenue less expenses paid. Some even believe that increased net profit must result in increased net positive cash flow. Net profit is an important component of financial analysis, however net profit is based on accounting principles defined for the purposes of creating financial statements for companies and not for measuring cash flow.

Cash flow can be defined as the measurement of a company’s health. Cash flow is calculated on the basis of net cash inflows less cash outflows or, equivalently, operating cash flows (net income plus amortisation and depreciation) minus capital expenditures and dividends.

Measuring cash flow

Typical indicators that are used to evaluate the cash flow trends within a company are:

• Operating cash flow / Sales ratio – provides an indication of cash growth in relation to sales growth
• Free cash/ Operating cash flow – measures the relationship between free cash (operating cash flows minus capital expenditures) and operating cash flow
• Cash flow coverage ratios such as  short-term debt coverage, dividend coverage and capital expenditure coverage

In addition, producing cash-flow budgets and controlling it against monthly adjusted cash-flow forecasts should provide the basic health checks to ensure cash flows are properly managed.