Aspire to Plan

A few days ago I told you why you hate the numbers. Was I right? Thought so…

Today I’m sharing why it’s important to understand what your numbers will help you with in running your business. Then I share a three step exercise at the end to help you get your arms around your numbers so it’s not so overwhelming.

Why its important:

To avoid unnecessary fees – This is a problem because it adds unnecessary expense. Being late on a payment or overdrawing your bank account, is like burning money! Banks charge hefty fees for overdrawn accounts, and this is just money wasted. If you aren’t managing your money on a weekly or monthly basis, these fees can add up. (I HIGHLY recommend overdraft protection because occassionally there will be an oversight. But even so, why give the bank ANY of your money?)

So you won’t be disorganized at tax time – You’ll waste a lot of time and possible sleep trying to gather everything together at tax time in order to do your taxes. If you have your taxes prepared by a professional, then you risk adding additional fees for the time it takes your accountant to make sense of it all before they can even begin to prepare your taxes.

To be able to make informed management decisions; long term and short term – If you don’t know your numbers and you don’t know what’s in your numbers, you can’t make solid business decisions. If you don’t know how much money you have in your bank account, you can’t decide whether or not you can spend money on an opportunity that happens to come up during the day or during the month. Having a solid grasp of where your numbers are and where they are going will help you to make better management decisions. For the short-term, that may mean purchasing a piece of equipment that happens to be on sale this week. For the long-term, you may see a conference coming up in three to six months that you would love to go to but because you don’t know what money may be coming in and what expenses are going out the door, you won’t be able to plan for that big expense in the long-term.

Knowing the ROI on a particular outlay of cash – The benefit you get from the money you put into your business has to be measured in some way so that you can make adjustments accordingly. You need to know whats working and what isn’t..like your advertising and marketing efforts…so that you can change them for better results.If it’s bringing money in the door, then you most certainly want to continue doing it. If it’s leaking money, then you want to get rid of it. You won’t know that unless you understand and have a solid book-keeping system.

Saves you time – Time is a very, very precious commodity when you own your own business, especially entrepreneurs and small business owners. Your time is money, so it is more important for you to spend time doing the things you love; those glamorous things; the creative things; the things that led you to start your business in the first place, instead of sitting behind a computer, at a desk, crunching numbers.

Here are some steps, just three simple steps to getting started on understanding the finances of your business:

1. Make a list of all the different ways that money comes in and out of your business; cash, checks, Paypal, debit cards, and credit cards. Under each type of tender, name and describe some of the situations/transactions where you use those vehicles of payment. A new client sale, supplies purchases, lunch or coffee date with the client or vendor, marketing and advertising payments, one time payment and recurring payments, professional fee payments, membership fees, club fees, rent, utilities.
2. Next to each transaction type, write down whether it is a revenue transaction (service or product sale), or an expense. There are several types of expenses but I won’t bore you with trying to determine that right now. Leave that for your accountant or bookkeeper to figure out.
3. Develop a process or system that you are comfortable with, to record the transaction (spreadsheet or Quickbooks). Make it simple so you’ll be more successful at keeping up with it. Also, designate a place to store the receipt/invoice/documentation for each of the types of transactions listed above. Like a folder or envelope labeled with the contents and what month it’s for.

Now…go and create some time and space in your schedule to do your bookkeeping once per week or at a minimum, once per month. If you can’t find the time in your schedule to do it, then hire someone to do it for you…to either create an easy, step by step system for your unique operating style or to actually do the bookkeeping for you each month.

Create the peace of mind you need to be a successful business owner as it relates to the creative side AND the financial side.

Tomorrow’s post shows you what a simple, easy Cash Flow Statement looks like`and how it can help you.  Don’t miss it!

You may be wondering why I am qualified to write and speak about finances and the dreaded “numbers game” of running a business. I’ll tell ya…

When I was a senior in high school, I decided to take a few business courses to breakup the monotony of all the chemistry, math and history classes I had to take in order to get into college. I took 6th period Accounting (lunch period) because I was more than likely going to ditch the class to hang out in the lunch room. Yes…I “planned” when I was going to ditch. I certainly wasn’t going to use that time for a “serious” class! (See? I was a “planner” even back then!)

Anyway, long story short I LOVED the class. So much so that I did the homework way in advance of when it was due. The curriculum? Starting and maintaining the books for a fictitious company during a three month period. It was like a game to me. I think I had the entire first month’s worth of transactions interpreted, recorded and books balanced by the first or second week.

Got an A+ in the class…off to UConn I went…majored in, you guessed it…accounting…and spent the next 25 years working my way up from bookkeeper to Director of Finance of a company here in Phoenix. I earned great money, enjoyed a great lifestyle and it exposed me to the in’s and outs of running a business profitably.

That’s why I love the numbers.

So here’s a rerun of a post I did a few days ago…a reminder of why you hate the numbers:

1. You are not good at it. You haven’t been trained to do it.

2. You don’t have time to do it. You’re busy running your business and your life. You’d rather spend time on the creative aspects of running your business.

3. You can’t keep track of all your receipts or all of the ways you spend your money. Money goes flying in and out the door in different ways at different times. 

4. You don’t know what receipt you should save and what you shouldn’t save. You end up saving every little receipt for every little expense (annoying) and you’re not sure if you should spend the time to file that receipt in a neat little place or because you don’t know if that expense is really important.

5. You don’t know how to record or categorize all the different ways you spend money. Again, this goes back to all of the different ways you spend money, whether it’s cash, check, credit card. It’s very confusing when you use all these ways of spending money, and what to do with each type of tender.

6. It’s not glamorous. Flowers, linens, fancy cakes and taking pictures of insanely gorgeous couples is glamorous…crunching numbers is not.

Bookkeeping is not something that people enjoy doing, and it never will be, but there are ways to make it more simple.  Really, I promise.  Tomorrow I’ll share more on why it’s important and some simple steps to make it easy for you.