A focus on one of our clients doing great things on an international scale.
Edwards & Co launched four years ago evolving from wholesale-only to a business that deals with the entire process from manufacture to wholesale to retail.
It’s a family affair with father-and-son duo working together to take Edwards & Co to the world. Currently, the range of strollers and compatible car seats are being sold online and through a network of retailers in New Zealand and Australia, but Warwick and Mark are looking to expand into a global market.
Mark says one of their main goals is “to keep moving forward.” Good planning is extremely important to know where the company is headed and encourages employees to continue putting in their best efforts to ensure success. Edwards & Co have joined the team at Next Advisory to help them interpret their real-time financial data from Xero, which changes by the minute, meaning decisions can be made so much faster, and are based on actual numbers.
Fashions and trends in the baby industry are constantly changing and it can be hard to keep up but Mark credits his ability to work from anywhere, helping to keep Edwards & Co ahead of the game. If there’s a perfect balance between work and home life Mark hasn’t found it, but he does prioritise time away from work. “This is how I remain creative. Some of my most important and creative ideas have come from a change of scene. I think variety of work is so important.”
Revenue has increased 230% in the past year and the expansion of the business has led to the hiring of four new staff members.
There’s been a stronger focus on social media as Mark recognises the importance of this marketing tool to reach a new generation of parents and parents-to-be. He’s also learnt the nature of social media is quickly evolving and influencer campaigns, which they’ve used in the past, no longer have the cut-through they once had.
To support the grow plans of Edwards & Co, the business also runs a completely different warehousing equipment website called Arrow Warehousing. The profits and cash from this business enables the company to invest in new design and tooling for the stroller business.
As a kid, owning his own business wasn’t on Mark’s radar and he initially dabbled in the corporate world of marketing and finance before launching Edwards & Co. He loves building the brand and has found it a seamless transition doing something he loves and is good at.
Mark and his husband are expecting their first child later this year which will bring a whole new set of challenges. But Mark is confident Edwards & Co will continue to grow and become another New Zealand success story.
![From what we have seen, business owners SHOULD NOT blindly pay their May tax without advice as to whether their profitability warrants it. Why? Because, 1/3rd of our clients won’t be paying tax in May. Accountants are on the front line of the economy and we have real time financial data. At the time of writing this, it is less than 10 days after the end of the financial year, and we’ve mostly finished reviewing the profitability of a good cross-section of the NZ economy: construction, engineering, marketing, e-commerce, services. All sorts. Here’s some tax insight that might help you understand what’s happening in the economy. AND, hopefully understand how tax works for many of you businesses owners. For some background, a lot of NZ SME’s pay tax in August, January and May to stay current with tax. This is loosely based on their profitability of the year before (2023FY ended 31/3/2023). This means that when they get their accounts done, they have hopefully cleared taxes on profits for the current financial year (2024FY ended 31/3/2024). We don't just tell our clients to pay tax based on last year. Every year is different. We review our clients' profitability throughout the year and by this final payment on the 7th of May, we have a really clear insight as to how profitable the financial year was. The 2 common themes are: 🔸 A lot of businesses don’t even need to make a payment in May because their profitability will be lower than last financial year, so they have less tax to pay. They've paid enough tax in August & January. 🔸 Some of those who do need to pay tax (even at a higher rate) are struggling to collect the cash (income from the work they’ve done) so they are battling to see how they can make the payment.
One of the tricky things for a growing business is that IF they don’t collect the money for the work they do in a timely manner, they will always struggle to pay their tax. Why? Because they’ve done the work, sent the invoice which recognises revenue and profit, BUT they haven’t turned it into cash in their business. [Continued in comments...]](https://nextadvisory.nz/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)
