I wanted to follow up a bit on my last article, in which I explain why even edgy and disruptive startups need an old-school budget. A lot of startups I’ve encountered seem to think of budgets as fundraising tools. That is, they draft it for potential investors, try to make it “interesting” (a.k.a. “there will …
Super-Duper Early Stage Startup Cash-Basis Budget Read More »
Several months ago, I gave a presentation at PICO Jerusalem on how to write a budget for a business. At the end of the session, I asked the participants to send me feedback. One of them responded something along the lines of: normal small businesses might need budgets but startups are special! We are just …
Today, we are going to talk about one of the most important reports, a report all of your potential investors will want to see and pore over. The statement that answers the question: are you making money or are you losing money? What statement is this? Statement of Profit & Loss. Or something else. Like …
Black is always the New Black (Statements of Operations/ Income Statements) Read More »
I’m going to start out by noting that what you really need is a process, and not a plan. However I couldn’t come up with anything sufficiently catchy based on the word “process” and Paul Simon was kind enough to provide a clever line that involved “plan”, which is close enough to a process. Albeit, …
I recently started doing some mentoring at Mass Challenge. It’s wonderfully interesting! I get to meet smart people who have come up with amazing ideas and see if I, in my finance-minded way, can provide them some small assistance to bring their plans to life. Recently, a gentleman came to see me with a question …
So, I’m sitting here, trying to write an article about the statement of operations and some other bits and pieces making up your audited financial statements . It’s audit season, I’ve got financial statements on the brain and don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t as well. And I’m writing stuff like “earnings over the period” …
Timing is Everything (in Your Financial Statements) Read More »
Recently, I was having a chat with the founder of a startup I’m advising. It’s a newish startup, with a tiny, overworked team. She and the co-founder are going a bit bonkers with accounts payable. They are having problems keeping track of invoices. Stuff falls through the cracks, resulting in pissy emails from suppliers. Other …
Use this template to create a list of suppliers which you can then populate each month with invoice details. The template then walks you through the review and approval process which I spell out for you here. Because, of course, you should be reviewing and approving invoices–you don’t want to just pay them blindly. Payables …
If you cannot tell from my images, I love Excel. It’s G-d’s gift to accountants. Actually, it’s G-d’s gift to anyone faced with financial tasks. Like you for instance! Excel’s divine origins notwithstanding, when you are working with a large, complicated file with multiple tabs, calculations and the like, it’s really easy for errors to …
When I’m not working, writing articles for this website, making (often vain) attempts to keep my garden alive, learning German or knitting*, I volunteer with an organization called Paamonim. We work with families to teach them personal financial management skills. Anyway, this week my team leader had the team come in for a periodic meeting …
