Most small businesses have a process document somewhere, and almost nobody follows it. Here's how to write one a new hire, an overseas team member, or a stressed Tuesday-you can pick up without asking a single question.

NAB's latest quarterly survey has business conditions below zero for the first time since 2020, and margins at their lowest in more than five years. Confidence picked up a little. Here's what's driving the squeeze, and where to look first.

Picture the pattern, because it's a common one. A business hires a sharp overseas team member. The interview goes well, the trial week goes better, everyone's pleased. Ten weeks in, she's gone. Not for more money elsewhere. Not for shorter hours. She left because nobody ever gave her a real way to do the job.

Forty-four per cent of Australian small businesses are using AI. That number gets repeated a lot. What doesn't get repeated as often is the other half: most of the businesses not using it say the reason isn't cost, and it isn't a lack of skills. They just don't think AI is relevant to a business like theirs. That's a different problem to the one most AI content is trying to solve.