You might not realise it, but the end of the Australian financial year is a potential opportunity to free up cash flow - cash that can be invested in improving your business' efficiency and effectiveness.

Lately, government legislation like 2016-18's $20,000 asset write-off has been encouraging local small business owners to get smart about their tax returns. With sound financial advice, some owners have taken great advantage of these changing tax laws.

While you must always talk to a professional adviser before making critical financial decisions, one thing to consider this year is investing in new office equipment. Around Australia, tired tech is holding SMB owners back without them even realising.

In these two short case studies, we explore how new office equipment can speed p operations and improve staff effectiveness.

1. The on-the-go SMB owner being held back

When an on-the-go SMB owner has to trail back to the office to print out important documents, his or her time is being wasted. Standard copy printers are great for some people, but if you travel a lot then they can be a ball and chain. You're forced to return to the office to print, only to then go back to the client to hand over the documents.

But what if you could print while on-site? Portable printers, for instance, are designed to be lightweight, with batteries that can charge via USB. By investing in the right portable tech, you should also gain Wi-Fi printing functionality, which would enable you to print from any device. So you won't even have to take your laptop to site anymore - just print that contract or information leaflet from your phone.

2. The SMB owner with ineffective meetings

If you're a small business that must give regular presentations - particularly to clients or potential investors - then visual effectiveness could make or break your meetings. If your presentation is forgettable, so are you.

It's a well-known fact in the scientific community that pictures are important in presentation material. Journals such as Memory and Cognition and the Journal of Consumer Research suggest that the human brain recalls images far better than text, a phenomenon known as the picture superiority effect. Now add this to the fact that people are up to five times more engaged with video content than static content (according to Facebook IQ).

• What's wrong with a TV or laptop screen? The largest TVs you can buy in Australia are generally 55-65 inches (and good luck getting a laptop screen even close to that size). But at that scale, a viewer must be within around 1-2 metres to get the best experience - anything further back, especially 3 metres or more - will make the screen hard to digest, or even illegible.

So what can you do about it? Consider investing in an office projector. These units don't have to cost very much, but should provide you with a screen size of up to 350 inches. And if you're worried about the brightness of the image during daylight, know that modern 3LCD projectors stand up a lot better to ambient light than older models. This helps provide vibrant colours and maximum picture clarity, even for meeting attendees at the back of the room.

Choose Epson this financial year

Epson is a specialist in smart printers and bright, HD projectors, with products available to suit both of our examples above. If a financial professional helps you free up cash flow this tax year, find your nearest Epson dealer at wheretobuy.epson.com.au.