Joanna's Toys & Books

Joanna’s Toys & Books is a retail shop in the shopping centre of West River that has operated for well over five years. It caters primarily to the 5-15 age market and is a small business owned and operated by Joanna Q Betts.

Joanna has never really made more than a healthy wage from the business. However, Joanna has never made a profit out of it and has never had time off for a reasonable holiday of more than three days. Being pretty much a 'one-man band', if she has time off, the shop has to close.

Joanna knows that the business cannot keep on performing at this relatively low level - either it will kill her or she will kill it.

Something has to change.

Action Planning Example

• Joanna’s Toys & Books is a Retail Shop business and a simple example.
• Financially, it consists of a single budget, having no multi divisional reporting.

• Joanna's Sample Plan JoannasToys-Books.pdf (80Kb)

Mary's Bookkeeping

Mary Pratchett has been operating her bookkeeping business 'Mary’s Bookkeeping' out of her home for some five years. By the end of her first year Mary had accumulated four small business clients. This climbed to ten small business clients as it stands now.

These current ten clients provide on average approximately three days of work per week. As Mary’s children are now all going to school, Mary would like some additional work and money.

The types of work that Mary provides include providing cash book reconciliation, payroll for employees, credit control, taxation reports and providing monthly financial management reports. All these services utilise the Gensol Accounts software program.

Mary’s business has grown mainly by word of mouth. Mary is renowned amongst her clients for ensuring the accounts are up to-date and accurate.

Now Mary would like to grow her business to at least accommodate four full days of work and income.

Action Planning Example

• Mary’s Bookkeeping is a Service business and a simple example.
• Financially, it consists of a single budget, having no multi divisional reporting.

• Mary's Sample Plan MarysBookkeeping.pdf (79Kb)

Didgi Flange Manufacturing

Didgi Flange Manufacturing is a small business that has operated out of the same premises in West River City since 1969. It has a proud record of providing solid and reliable flange and other related product to the piping and mining industry. The company is owned and operated by Mr Arthur Arthurs, an engineer, who took over the operations with his wife, Beryl, an accountant, upon the sudden retirement of his father in 1982.

For the last few years the company’s sales have only remained constant, with little or no growth across all product lines. This is a result due partly to an international downturn affecting adversely the mining industry and due partly also to the company’s lack of development in its major product line of Flanges. Apart from this, the company is stable in terms of staffing, finance, and customers. There has been no loss of market share, however this has largely been due to their good name - without continual improvement it should be expected that market share will diminish.

Arthur and Beryl Arthurs are ably assisted by the chief engineer Mr Ben Constant, engineer Mr Peter Donat, by the marketing/salesperson Ms Hillary Opath, and by the several other employees. It is important to note too, that staff are reasonably loyal as the staff turnover rate in the company is much less than that of competitors.

Financially, the company has two main reporting divisions:

• Manufacturing
• Marketing

Action Planning Example

• Didgi Flange Manufacturing is a Manufacturing business with a more detailed plan for example purposes.
• Financially, it consists of a multi-plan budget, having two identifiable financial reporting divisions.

• Didgi Flange Sample Plan DidgiFlangeManufacturing.pdf (109Kb)

West River Adult Reading Centre

West River Adult Reading Centre is located generally in the heart of the West River City. It provides facilities to those who wish to improve their reading and writing abilities.

For many years it has provided these services to adults who have needed to improve their reading and writing abilities mainly for employment purposes. However, the State Government is currently considering providing a grant of $32,000 to pilot a scheme whereby the Centre services the local low security prison in assisting prisoners with similar difficulties.

Given the expansion of services the manager, Bill Billington, considers that the Centre is gaining greater acceptance in the wider community and therefore needs to lift its profile. To do so, Bill is also considering the implementation of a website - to provide resources to the community as well as to generally improve the Centre’s image.

The Centre is operated by:

Bill Billington - Bill is a former high school principal who founded the Centre some 8 years ago. He left his school employment because of his commitment to this service. He works in excess of 50 hours a week in the Centre, the overtime being unpaid.

Nora Stanley-Symthe - Nora is a qualified primary school teacher who works part-time in the Centre and assists Bill.

Todd Chung - Todd is a young primary school teacher who is still trying to find a full time position. During the interim he has been volunteering approximately 10 hours a week to the Centre.

Action Planning Example

• West River Adult Reading Centre is a Non-Profit Organisation and a simple example.
• Financially, it consists of a single budget, having no multi program reporting.

• West River Sample Plan WR-AdultReadingCentre.pdf (73Kb)