December is already a month packed full of holidays and celebrations, but here’s one more thing to pencil in your calendar: December is Write Your Business Plan Month!

This is the time for you to plan for 2025, but in order to plan ahead, you must look back at 2024. Whether you are writing a budget, projection or plan, you have to have some history behind it. You should assess the current state of your business and figure out what is working and what you can improve upon. What do you know, and how should you apply it next year?

Look at the services and/or products that you sold in prior years and assess: how are your sales likely to change in the coming year? Are you planning to add any new items, services, or packages, or are you going to increase any of your existing sales or services? If you have clients, now is a good time to assess the profitability of those clients and consider your pricing plan.

Your company needs a certain profitability per sale or per client in order to pay for the operating costs, and many of those operating costs are going to increase in the coming year. Your insurance is probably increasing, so now is a good time to determine if you are getting the service that you want. Do you have to look at your insurance providers? Put that in your calendar now. Software subscription services will also be increasing. Will you purchase things in 2025 that could be affected by government changes, such as tariffs? What goods are you importing from other countries? Most tariffs will impact imports over a certain dollar amount. Part of your business plan may be to change your sources.

Next, it’s time to consider your employees. When planning their salaries for the coming year, you need to consider inflation – what is the average rate of increase? Are you giving certain individuals increases, or are you giving increases across the board? Are there promotions, or expected promotions that you need to factor into your budget? Also, make sure that the benefits you offer your employees are on par with what other employers give. Are you able to offer a retirement plan, such as a 401k, or a simple IRA? Are you able to give healthcare benefits? You also need to reassess the division between employees and contractors in your company, because the Department of Labor has been investigating companies to make sure that the contractors are actually contractors. Make sure that you know what the legal differences are between employees and contractors. You should also plan your calendar with your employees in mind. Do your employees have vacations set up? Are they getting married? Do you need to schedule around life events?

You should also consider your business as a legal entity. Is your business an LLC or a Subchapter S? There are some benefits available to Subchapter S businesses, depending on what state you are in. Different benefits are available to different entities, so do your research!

Another thing to consider in your business plan is technology. We use Microsoft TEAMS for video conferencing (yes, we also use Zoom – even before the pandemic!), document storage, task completion and communications. What does your company need, and how can technology support it? Do you need a new CRM (Customer Relationship Management) such as Hubspot or Salesforce? Do you need a new accounting system? (If so, call me!) Do you need task planning software such as Asana or ClickUp? Are you maximizing the functionality of the systems that you have? Also, you must make sure that your computers are up-to-date with systems and security. Go to your vendors and make sure that if they are accessing your systems, that their computers are up-to-date with security. Your cyber insurance may not cover vendors accessing your systems if something goes wrong.

One final thing to consider as we go into the holiday season: how are you going to manage the holidays in December and January? Payroll still has to be done at the end of the month, when many people aren’t working. Who is going to process it, and when?

With all of that considered and planned for the coming year ahead, then it will finally be time to relax, spend some time with family and friends, and enjoy the holiday season. I hope you have a happy end to 2024, and I look forward to seeing you in 2025!