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Guide to Fractional CFO Services
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Projecting the Next Small Business Stimulus
The election has provided some clarity about what the future administration will look like. Unfortunately, we still have very few details regarding if/what/when the next stimulus package will be. Many people are calling for additional stimulus. With Small Business confidence at an all-time low, it would be hard for Congress not to pass some additional
Inventory Accounting = Higher Profits
In January 2020, Mark Belle knew he was going to have a challenging conversation with his boss. Mark was the general manager at one of the three locations of a food service provider that I had just begun to provide virtual CFO services. The company sold several retail products but also produced fresh, ready to
Good vs. Evil Accounting Departments – 10 Traits to Look For
With Halloween upon us, let’s talk about the differences between a good and bad (or dare I say evil) accounting department. Small business accounting can be a struggle for many business owners. If it weren’t, you wouldn’t find over 4 million results for “What do bookkeepers do?” on Google. Finding the right fit for your
COVID + Budgeting – A Cost-Cutting Primer for 2021
Many business owners face the same dilemma this upcoming budgeting season: how to make ends meet. Despite pockets of success stories, most data points to businesses struggling in general. Several surveys have shown just how deep the impact has been. Alignable found that by April 4th, 43% of businesses had temporarily closed and 39% had
Small Businesses Lessons from Public Companies
While sitting with a client recently, we needed to solve a problem – they needed aluminum cans. Production was being constrained by the lack of aluminum cans available for this beverage manufacturer. Their supplier said the constraint resulted from more prominent players, such as Coca Cola and PepsiCo, gobbling up the supply. We wanted to
4 Metrics Any Business Owner Should Review Monthly
Part of the problem with financial statements is they do not tell the whole story, metrics wise. Each financial statement tells part of a story. One must put all of the statements together to get a better idea of what the full picture is. However, even then, it is easy to misconstrue what the data
Financial Reporting Falls Short of Todays Entrepreneur’s Needs
From day one, a business owner has been told they need to care about the financial statements. If an owner attended business school, most classes reinforced the idea that financial statements were the holy grail of information. If you listen to any business media coverage, they constantly talk about revenue, earnings, and EBITDA. As an
3 Best Practices on Price Changes
In my opinion, business owners worry too much about the impact of price changes on their customers. I have a client who has not raised prices in 4 years. Every year we have the same discussion and I get the same answer; “My customers will revolt if I increase my prices.” Most clients I work
Is Your Franchise a Good Investment?
Of the 3,800 concepts that are currently franchising, over 25% have 0 franchised units. Going up to the next tier of 1-25 units, you’ll find another 36% of franchised concepts. A report by FranchiseGrade further shows that after two years of trying to franchise, 65% of concepts sell no locations. It shouldn’t come as a
You Could Be Losing Big If You Aren’t Tracking Marketing ROI
No matter the size of your business, you are most likely spending money on marketing. In total, companies in the United States spent $2.1 trillion on marketing in 2019. To put that in perspective, that represents about 10% of the total US GDP (healthcare spending ranks just a little higher at 17%). In other words,
Demystifying Financial Modeling
Most clients I talk with don’t realize that financial modeling is usually just a financial tool that is created in Microsoft Excel. When I first bring up modeling, most tell me their business isn’t sophisticated enough to warrant modeling. In this article, we’ll discuss what modeling is, why you might want to create a financial
A CFO and Bookkeepers Role in Restructuring Finances
The COVID-19 virus has created an economic crisis that is unique. While many have seen a financial crisis before, we have not seen one that has touched so many components of the economy. During the downturns we saw during the early 2000s, there were large areas of the economy that were left untouched. Because of the vast swaths