Tag: hemsworth

Accurate Content to Tell Your Financial Story

In order to craft your financial story, it is necessary to have accurate and relevant content. Necessary steps to create and validate this content are:
Building the foundation: Steps to start the creation of your business foundation include

  • Registering your business
  • Getting a business bank account
  • Selecting a system of record to account for your business transactions.

A separate business bank account and a system of record, such as Quickbooks Online, will keep your business out of your personal life allowing you to easily track dollars in and out, as well as alleviate some headaches at tax time.
Create a budget/forecast: Hopefully you have done your business plan already, which means that you should have created a financial forecast for the first three years of your business. Outlining your expected revenue and expenses for the month. If you haven’t yet, this is an important step in creating your financial story content and should be done.
Reconciling your cash: No matter where you are in your business life-cycle, accounting for your cash is important. Utilizing the accounting system that you have selected should allow this to be a painless process. Comparing your bank account to what you have recorded in your accounting system will not only allow you cash flow visibility, it will ensure that your books are accurate. Any missing cheques, erroneous withdrawals or insufficient customer payments will be quickly identified and can be dealt with in a timely manner making sure no dollar is lost.
Close your books monthly: At the end of every month your books should be closed, and financial statements (income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement) should be created and read. These statements should be reviewed in detail, understanding each line item and what that means for your business. Each month is like another chapter written in your story, and like a story, each chapter is important and none should be skipped without the risk of not fully understanding the story.
Review your actuals against your budget/forecast: With your budget/forecast already created, and your month end financial statements prepared, the next exercise is to compare the two and note any differences, and then to understand why.  This is calculating your variances and creating commentary. You need to be aware of where your company has been to make sure that you keep on track to where you intend to go. If there are any significant changes to your business roadmap a new budget/forecast should be created.

Following these steps will ensure that you have accurate content to craft and understand your financial story. If you need help with any or all of the steps, we would be happy to help!

Business Plan to turn Passion into Profits

For many business owners, the idea of creating a business plan is either new or overwhelming. With no clear place to start or understanding of its importance, business plans go left unwritten, and your business could be suffering because of it.

A business plan provides a roadmap to get your business running and headed in the direction of growth and profitability. Getting and keeping your business on track.

A business plan is a requirement when looking for investors. You may have a great pitch, but investors want to see the numbers and the logic behind it. A solid business plan will give investors an understanding of what to expect from your company, as well as a good indication of who you are as a creative entrepreneur.

Not looking for any investors to get your business going? You may think you are off the hook for creating a business plan, but you should think again. Writing a business plan solidifies your product offerings, your fees, expenses and projected revenues which allows for the creation of a strong plan to carry you forward. Something that you can hold yourself up to and check in with to make sure you are on track to getting where you wanted to go.

Some key concepts found in good business plans are:

  • A clear purpose which explains why your business is important, which problems do you solve for? Which pain points to you alleviate for your customers?
  • An identification of who your ideal customers are. Have a clear understanding of their pain points, their challenges. An explanation of why your product/services are perfect for them to help alleviate their stresses you have identified.
  • A description of your product/service clearly identifying what you are offering to your customers, and what makes your business unique from competitors.
  • A plan for marketing your brand. What resources will you use to promote your business and what results are expected from your efforts.
  • A sustainable monetization model. How will you make money from your product/services to create a profitable business, what type of key performance indicators do you need to track to monitor your profitability.

Once your business is off the ground, you will need to make sure that you are tracking to your business plan that you spent some much time creating. This is where we can help build the content to craft your financial story, turning your passion into profits.

Benefits of Outsourcing

Unless you are an accountant, you likely didn’t start your own business to crunch numbers and balance your books. In the interest of time, money and quality, outsourcing to an expert can be beneficial.
5 benefits to outsourcing are to:
Reduce Costs – hiring, training and monitoring staff in areas that you aren’t familiar, such as HR or finance, can be costly.  Outsourcing these tasks will reduce your overhead, you only pay for what you use and can ensure it is a qualified professional that you won’t need to train.
Increase Efficiency – by removing the stress of tasks that your business doesn’t specialize in, allows time for you company to focus streamlining your business and doing more with less.
Improve Quality – by focusing all of your resources on the aspects of the company which drive the product for the end user, and outsourcing effectively the areas that you don’t specialize in can lead to an improved quality product or service.
Reduce Risk – with a rapidly changing market and environment of government regulations, technologies, and financial conditions, outsourcing to those that specialize in these areas can help to guide your business decisions to avoid taking unnecessary risks.
Drive Results – by hiring the right company to help with back office tasks that you don’t specialize in,  allows you the time to spend on what you do best, focusing on the core of your business needs.

Focus on what you do the best, and outsource the rest. Contact us to outsource your accounting needs.