To decide what to fix first in a business, sort every problem by two questions: how much damage will it do if you leave it, and how many other problems does it cause? Fix legal and cash risks first, then the bottleneck that is holding everything else back, and only then the improvements that would be nice to have. Everything else goes on a list for later.
If you run a small business, you probably know the feeling. The website is outdated, two clients owe you money, your one good staff member is unhappy, the books are three months behind and you still have not started that marketing plan. Everything feels urgent. So you jump between fires, fix a little of everything, and at the end of the month nothing has really changed.
The problem is not a lack of effort. It is a lack of order. Here is a simple way to decide what comes first.
Key takeaways
Small businesses have very little spare capacity. Often the owner is the salesperson, the bookkeeper, the operations manager and the person who fixes the printer. When you try to tackle ten problems in parallel, each one gets a few hours here and there, and none of them gets finished.
You are not alone in this. In Xero’s 2025 survey of 414 South African small businesses, 38% said they lacked the resources to take up new technology and 38% reported a shortage of skills for emerging tools. Limited time and skills are the normal condition, not a personal failing. That is exactly why the order in which you fix things matters so much.
A half-fixed problem also costs you twice. You spend the time, and you still carry the problem.
Before you can prioritise, you need to see the whole list. Take 30 minutes and write down every problem, frustration and “we should really” you can think of. Do not filter yet.
Then group them under a few headings so patterns show up:
If you want a structured way to do this, our free business health check guide walks through seven areas to diagnose before you try to grow. You can also use the business clarity checklist to spot gaps you might not have written down.
Some problems are not just annoying. They can close the business. These always go to the top, even if they feel boring.
Missed tax returns are a good example of a problem that grows quietly. SARS explains that its administrative non-compliance penalty for not submitting a return ranges from R250 to R16 000 a month, recurring each month the non-compliance continues, up to 35 months. SARS notes that companies are also subject to these penalties. A few hours with your accountant now is far cheaper than a year of penalties.
If you cannot see whether you will have enough cash to pay salaries and suppliers next month, that is an urgent problem. The SBA’s guidance on managing business finances puts it simply: “looking closely at money-in and money-out helps maintain a sustainable balance.” In practice, that means up-to-date books, a list of who owes you money, and a basic forecast. Our guide to forecasting your cash flow shows how to build one.
Other items in this group: an expired licence, a key client with no contract, or a safety issue on site.
If cash is the fire you keep putting out, our guide to why revenue grows but the bank balance doesn’t covers the usual causes and practical fixes.
Once the fires that could sink you are under control, look for the one constraint that limits everything else. In most small businesses there is one, and fixing it makes several other problems smaller.
Ask: “If this one thing improved, what else would get easier?” Take a Cape Town design agency as an example. The owner lists slow invoicing, missed deadlines, unhappy staff and no time for new business. Dig in, and all four trace back to one thing: every design has to be approved by the owner personally, and she is always behind. Fix the approval process and four problems shrink at once.
Very often the bottleneck is the owner. If that sounds familiar, read about the signs of founder dependency and what to hand over first.
For everything that is left, give each problem a quick score from 1 to 5 on three things:
Add the scores up. High totals go first. This is not science, but it forces you to compare problems honestly instead of reacting to whatever shouted loudest this morning.
| Problem | Impact | Urgency | Effort (5 = easy) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Debtors over 60 days not followed up | 5 | 5 | 4 | 14 |
| No written process for quoting | 4 | 3 | 4 | 11 |
| Website looks outdated | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 |
| New logo | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
Notice how the “exciting” projects often land at the bottom. A new logo feels productive. Chasing debtors actually pays the rent.
Take the top three items and work on only those for the next 30 to 90 days. For each one, write down:
Everything else stays on the list. It is not forgotten, just waiting. When one of the three is done, the next item moves up.
A Durban spaza shop owner, for example, might pick: reconcile stock weekly, stop giving credit to customers who have not paid last month’s account, and separate business and personal money. Three things, all finishable, all with a direct effect on cash.
That last one matters most. Business survival is hard in South Africa: the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor reported that the rate of established business ownership fell from 3.5% in 2019 to 1.8% in 2022/23. You cannot afford to spend your limited time on the wrong problem.
B.E.T starts with a structured diagnostic that scores each area of your business, so you are not relying on gut feel. It highlights the weakest areas and the risks, which gives you an honest starting list.
From there, you can turn the top priorities into goals and tasks, assign them to yourself or your team, and track progress on a simple dashboard. When you review each month, you can see what moved and what did not. If you also need a plan for funders or partners, the same information feeds the plan builder, which we compared with other options in our guide to choosing business plan software. You can run a free business health check to see your own priority list.
Start with anything that could close the business: tax and legal compliance, and cash flow you cannot see. Next, find the bottleneck that causes several other problems. Only then move on to improvements such as branding or new systems.
Write every problem down, then score each one on impact, urgency and effort. Add up the scores and work on the top three only. Urgent-feeling tasks often score low once you compare them side by side.
For most small businesses, three is enough. With limited time and people, working on more than three usually means none gets finished. Finish one, then pull the next item up from the list.
Look for the issue that, if fixed, would make several others easier. A structured business diagnostic helps because it checks areas you might not think of, like compliance or reliance on the owner. Your numbers, such as debtor days and margins, often reveal the real issue.
Check progress weekly and review the full list monthly. Circumstances change, a new risk may appear, or a problem you ranked low may have got worse.
You do not need to fix everything. You need to fix the right few things, in the right order, and finish them. Spend 30 minutes this week writing your list and scoring it, or start a free B.E.T trial and let the diagnostic build the first draft for you.
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