Fail to prepare, prepare to fail is an oft quoted phrase and much loved by business mentors and sports managers. And, for sure, there is a great deal of truth in it. But what if you don’t know how to prepare, then what?
Time and time again, energetic, honest and hard working entrepreneurs take up the challenge and open their own small business. There is no end of tasks and key responsibilities to take on and fulfill. The following list is by no means exhaustive, it is simply representative of the tasks to be completed.
- Develop your business idea – explore in detail exactly what you are planning to do.
- Decide on a legal structure for your business – sole trader, limited company, etc.
- Choose a name for your business – not as easy as you think and requires some serious consideration.
- Register your business name – one of those important must-dos
- Prepare organisational paperwork – paperwork that is another one of those important must-dos
- Find a business location – where are you going to trade from?
- Obtain insurance – so important and a prerequisite in today’s environment.
- Set up your online accounting system – a kingpin of any successful business – being on top of your accounts
I’m sure you’ve identified any number of tasks that could be on the above list. One thing is for sure, of all the tasks, if you do not have a firm handle on the numbers then you’ve no chance. Chances are you’ll fall at the cash flow hurdle. Cash flow catches so many small businesses out and it’s a real tragedy as they, in all likelihood, could have turned out to be long term viable businesses.
All avoidable if only the basics of accounting was understood.
So, back to the above point, ‘but what if you don’t know how to prepare, then what?’ In this instance, how to prepare a cash flow forecast.
Hands up all those reading this blog post that were provided with a grounding in the basics of bookkeeping and accounting before you started your own business.
Now, hands up those of you looking to start a business and you too have no grounding in the basics of bookkeeping and accounting.
We identified this as a major issue some time back and we set ourselves the task to come up with a simple and easy to follow series of short videos to help small business owners understand the basics of bookkeeping and accounting.
Welcome to Account-Ability, Big Red Cloud’s 5 part video series. Written and designed with the small business owner in mind, the easy-to-follow series of videos is free to access and it comes with some handy templates that are also free to download.
Complete the Account-Ability video series and you’ll have a pretty good grounding in the essential basics of bookkeeping and accounting for your small business. Did we mention that each video is no longer than 6 minutes?
Complete the Account-Ability video series and ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’ will not be an issue when it comes to the understanding and managing the finances of your small business.
Take your first step to running a successful small business.
Click here to access Account-Ability.
