Annie Flannagan

March 2021 had many Australians sitting on the edge of their seats as we approached a cliffhanger ending to JobKeeper and tried to anticipate the economic impacts for the rest of the year ahead.

There are some costs of running an SME that are just accepted as being a painful part of doing business. The finance function is always top of the business owner’s list. For some, it’s the least understood. It is business critical if you want to stay the right side of liquid, but has traditionally been deeply rooted in the process of ‘what’s been’ rather than the ‘what if’ of growth.

I started my business 12 months before the GFC. Just as I was getting my swim stroke sorted, the tidal wave came crashing over my head. For quite a few terrifying months everything I had worked so hard to build was teetered on the edge. But survive we did.

A few days back I posted what 2020 had taught me personally. With the break almost over, it is invariably a time to reflect on the observations of 2020 from a SME perspective.

I’ve worked with SMEs for almost 20 years but no other year was like the one just gone. As I reflect on the bruiser of the year that was (which is why I love the break over Christmas and New Year so), I’m grateful that 2020 is where I learned more personally than any year I can remember as a working adult.

Both my parents were founders and owners of SMEs. As a child, I remember all of the uncertainty we lived through like it was yesterday.

Working remotely. It can make you feel disconnected or encourage you to build new ways of communicating so that you're really heard.

Government subsidies such as JobKeeper were swiftly put into place to sandbag the devastation of the COVID-19 impact but Tuesday’s Budget could be just the opportunity you need to thrive to meet the economic tidal wave that follows.

For many businesses in Australia, the end of September marks a new horizon: the end of JobKeeper support.