Ok Here is the legal stuff: This is just a financial experienced friend telling you financial information and tips that may help you in your business and in making your business decisions. You should contact your professional and lawyer for your personal and business situation.
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This is going to provide you with bookkeeping information and tips. so it will take a series of financial blogs to give you the information. The blogs are planned as steps so follow the blogs and you will get to full benefit of understanding bookkeeping tips, financial reports, setting goals (long term and Short Term) etc.
THIS IS THE TIME OF YEAR TO SEE IF YOU MADE THE RIGHT BUSINESS DECISIONS IN 2009 AND TO MAKE THE BEST DECISIONS AND ADJUSTMENTS FOR 2010.
To begin this process you must have had your bookkeeping system set up correctly, so lets discuss that.
Knowing if you made a profit or had a lose is good to know. But knowing those questions on specific services, investments and/or products is vital in a successful business.
You might be thinking, I know in my head that I am making a profit. Are you sure? I dare you to compare the real numbers to what's in your Head :.)
OR
I think about this when I do my taxes. Your tax return will help you know if your business is making a profit not necessarily why or why not. OR how to improve business
AND
If you have a service, investment, product that isn't making money , has not be actively received or you are losing money on, why wait 3 months to change it? You like losing money? Your business is so successful, it doesn't matter what is doing it? Congratulations, just remember staying business doesn't always mean making a profit or the highest profit you could.
From this point on I will only say service but will mean service, product or investment
The First step will depend on your bookkeeping system.
If your bookkeeping was set up with a separate income and expense listing for each service then you will want to complete the entering of your 2009 transactions.
If your bookkeeping set up only has generic listing for income and expenses, you will want to change that. Make an income source category for each service and an expense item for each income source.
If you will have to make expensive payments to others to do this, there is another way to collect this information. Get a notebook or create a spreadsheet and make sure you set it up with the needed income sources titles on one page and have a separate expense page for each of your income source titles. You may want to enter all transactions for 2009 to get an actual picture of the past history to plan your business moves in 2010. (You may want to only enter for a 6 month period for a snapshot picture for business decisions and goals. The entire years of transactions are better but some is better than "what you think happened")
SAMPLE LIST OF NEEDED CATEGORIES
Income Categories:
Occupied Staging Consultation and Written Report
Occupied Staging - Hands On
Vacant Staging
Expenses:
Occupied Staging Consultation and Written Report:
Auto expenses
Office materials
Occupied Staging Hands On Expenses:
Auto expenses
Staging Materials (picture hangers, cord strips etc)
Furniture Moving
Labor
Accessory Depreciation Expense (Don't panic, this will be discussed later)
Vacant Staging Expenses:
Auto expenses
Staging Materials (picture hangers, cord strips etc)
Furniture Moving
Labor
Furniture/Accessory Depreciation (Don't panic, this will be discussed later)
Overhead
Insurance
Utilities
Telephone:
Office
Cell
Office Supplies
Automobile Expenses
Advertising
Taxes:
Local
State
Federal
Sales and Use Tax
Corporate Reporting Expenses
Once you have your bookkeeping system or notebook set up and all 2009 transactions in it. You will want to analyze what it is telling you. Yes I am talking how to understand financial reports. We will work on that next week.
So get busy entering your end of the years checks and deposits. Just Do It!
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