Does everyone understand the Profit and Loss Statement, also known as the Income Statement? Sales and growth seem to be the big focus for most companies, regardless of how the bottom line performs.  Sure, sales can create growth and expansion, but it can also spell chaos and turmoil. Companies can choke itself financially with growth without preparation. Customer service, staff retention and owner satisfaction can all suffer. How about Cash Flow when a company goes through a growth spurt? Will it drain the company funds or feed the company?  New equipment, more staff and higher inventory often are prerequisites of growth.

There are some great reports in QuickBooks that can help an owner manage growth, stay liquid and sane at the same time. The first is to understand the Profit and Loss Statement and to ask yourself if the current model is creating profit? Can it be improved? Will sales solve the profit problem? Or do I need to look at the current cost structure and pricing structure? Is the  company carrying too much inventory? What is the right stocking level? The QuickBooks Sales by Item Summary report can show you the movement of each of the products and what is not turning. Why do we need 100 parts of an item that we only sold 1 of all of last year?

Did you know you can setup a forecasts and monthly budgets in QuickBooks? You can and it is hidden in the heading Company, Planning & Budgeting. This is a great tool to use when in a growth mode or when a company is just watching costs.  The forecast can be the basis for the Cash Flow Projection. The Cash Flow report is invaluable for any company that is growing and they want to predict the crunch months. 

Keep becoming a student of Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet, Forecasts and Cash Flow reports. Get to know your industry best of benchmarks and set sail for those markers. Be a student of inventory because it has a large affect on meeting the customer's expected delivery time and, if to high, can drain off valuable cash flow. 

 

Intuit has classified Chris at BSSNW, LLC  as a Intuit Service Provider, servicing medium size business with their QuickBooks Enterprise needs and installation as well as ad-on software that integrates well with QuickBooks products. 

Here we are again, at the end year. A long, tough, and scary year for business owners.  QuickBooks is often the last thing people want to look at during a down year. But it is the navigator. The GPS business tracker. It tells us where we were, and where our business is going. If, by chance, it is set on auto-pilot, watch out!! It could be heading straight for a large coral reef.  Looking up and seeing the picture clearly may make us feel worse. But it gives a better chance get a grip on where we are heading. Seeing clearly is 80% of the battle.

How do we see clearly? The first thing is to straighten out QuickBooks®. As you are going through the numbers, stories start to unfold.  As the pieces of the puzzle are put in its rightful place, we receive feedback from this year. The winners and loser often surprise us. Like the old TV show "Dragnet", we need to know the facts. Blind faith cannot get us through these times. Maybe in previous years, but not these coming year.

Things to check and clean up in QuickBooks are the loan balances at year end, make sure expensive equipment are on the balance sheet report under equipment and flagged for year end. Check the Account Receivable and Account Payable balances and clean them up for year end. There could be some bad debts to write off and duplicate bills or invoices that need to be handled properly. It may have been a better year than expected. But how could it be if the checkbook is so low? Maybe customers are paying a lot slower than last year. Cash Flow can create many problems.

 Make a commitment to get QuickBooks right and dig deeper into your business's numbers. Read the story so you can write the future chapters with clarity and conviction. If you get hung up on some issues, call in a Pro Advisor.

 

There is a new piece of software called Qvinci  that pulls data from QuickBooks and creates graphs that is attracting some attention lately. The Sleeter Group gave it their Awesome QuickBooks Ad-ons for 2010 award for smooth interaction with QuickBooks data and ease of use. Qvinci is inexpensive dashboard that pulls numbers from QuickBooks and displays it in an easy to see graphs. You can customize it to show four graphs that are important for the owner to see at a glance. You can also use Excel to pull data from and create graphs. I spoke with the owner and he was fast to respond and assist with technical support. So was his staff.  The software pulls data from reports that already exist in QuickBooks, but it lacked in pulling raw data from different areas and trying to pull them into a custom report automatically. You also could not add a formula to an existing graph to create a custom result. This had to be done in Excel. The makers did say that they were making plans add those functions next year. All in all it is a nice piece of software for a reasonable price.

This is the ProFound Impact Process:

Monthly Improvement and Business Education Advancement

1. Advanced Financial Management Coaching
   1. One meeting a month. Minimum of 12 months.
   2. Analyze and Improve Business Profits Monthly
   3. Building a Budget.
   4. Developing and Understanding a Cash Flow Report
   5. Benchmarking your company to the Industry.
   6. Unlimited e-mails and phone calls.
2. Job Costing Coaching
   1. Analyzing what each job costs.
   2. Determining the costly issues and how to avoid them.
   3. What went right and how to ensure duplication?
   4. Take each job and improve upon it.
3. Teaching the Bookkeeper QuickBooks Done Right
   1. How to do Quarterly Payroll Taxes
   2. How to post Refunds.
   3. Where to post equipment.
   4. How to update Loan interest write offs monthly.
   5. Unlimited phone calls and emails.
4. Lean Manufacturing
   1. Learn the lean process.
   2. Learn to identify waste in your business.
   3. Learn how to eliminate waste.
   4. Learn to identify the root cause of waste.
   5. Eliminate waste
5. Lean Office
   1. Identify waste in estimating, Invoicing and Change Orders.
6. Technology Advancement
   1. Identify Technology to improve the company.
   2. Recommend one Technology improvement a month.
   3. Make recommendations on timeline.   
   4. Software add-ons for QuickBooks- Scheduler, Inventory, Estimators etc.
7. Future Strategies, Services & Products
   1. What are the key future indicators for your business?   
   2. How will the future affect your business?
   3. How can be proactive towards the future?
   4. What new services and products can your company provide?

 

Value Added to the Business and Owner

1. Advanced Financial Management Coaching
   1. Improve financials by avoiding costly mistakes and improving net profit.  Yearly  $_________  Times 3 Years $_________
   2. More discretionary time.   ______Hours Year
   3. Less Stress with a greater understanding.  ____Reduction of Stress
2. Improving Job Costing Yearly $______ Times 3 Years
3. Teaching Bookkeeper Accounting
   1. Less time spent cleaning up reports.
   2. Stress level reduction.  _____
4. Lean Manufacturing – 80% waste in most processes.
   1. Savings in to the bottom line by eliminating waste.  
   2. Improved on time performance.
   3. Improved Customer Satisfaction
   4. Morale improvement with staff.
   5. Repeat savings in future jobs.
5. Lean Office– 80% waste in most processes.
   1. Savings in to the bottom line by eliminating waste.  
   2. Improved on time performance.
   3. Improved Customer Satisfaction
   4. Morale improvement with staff.
   5. Repeat savings in future jobs.
6. Technology Coaching
7. Future Strategic Planning