Starting your first business can be scary stuff. You’ve got this Widget….it’s pretty awesome. It’s totally new and no one has done it before, or someone is already selling this Widget but you can sell it better, or there just aren’t enough of the Widgets around for the people who want them.
You’ve probably spent years thinking about this Widget. You’ve gotten so excited about that you’ve finally decided to jump in head first and start your own Widget business. Now you have to think about how you are going to sell it, price it, market it and gain the independence that comes with owning your own Widget business.
With all that excitement and planning going on….lots of folks don’t really have enough time to think about the stuff behind the Widget. Things like paying vendors, paying employees, filing Sales and Use Tax, and generating actual financial reports to show just how much you are making on these Widgets might not be the most exciting part about starting your business but they still need to happen.
According to an article in CNBC, one of the reasons many small business fail is due to “Empty Pockets.” If you aren’t able to generate reliable financial reports how can you tell if you have the cash flow to sustain your new dream? You might be selling thousands of Widgets but let’s say your biggest customer is slow to pay…..if they take too long to pay their invoices you might not have enough cash to pay yours. Before too long you might not have enough cash to pay your employees or to pay down your credit. What happens when you are out of cash for too long? Too often, that means shuttered doors.
Cash flow is only part of the huge amount of information regular, reliable financial reports can provide you. It is the only way to reliably assess the health of your new venture.
So how is your cashflow? Need expert help? Get in touch.