Free consult & free copy of book

E-Myth – “Why most small businesses don’t work & what to do about it”

Contact Us

Stars

Most 5 star CPA Google reviews in Canada

Read Reviews

Chartered Professional Accountants E Myth

1 Fixed Monthly Fee - Planning | Accounting | Taxes | Consulting

Helping Canadian businesses beat the odds!

Cfo Services | Learning How To Read Profit And Loss Statements

One of the more important things that business owners can learn in their business, is how to read their profit and loss statements says CFO services. It’s extremely important for a number of reasons, not only do business owners often need to make important and large financial decisions in their business before they have their year-end reviews back. But it’s also important for entrepreneurs to understand how they can read the profit and loss statements on a monthly basis, in order to be proactive in their business. If they see that their business is starting to be less profitable, it will be able to ask why and make changes in their business right away that can impact their business positively. If an entrepreneur was to wait until their fiscal year end to see those numbers and make changes, may end up being too late for the business.

When business owners are looking at their income statement, you need to first understand that if there looking at interim statements, there may be easy to see errors on the income statement, the business owner can only see if you look at the balance sheet first. Therefore, business owners should look at the balance sheet first and get comfortable with the totals on it, before looking at their income statement says CFO services.

An easy way to tell if income statements have errors on them, is by having negative numbers on the income statement. If an entrepreneur sees income statements with numbers on them, they should be able to tell that it’s very reasonable that those negative numbers are wrong and usually due to a misclassification.

After a business owner has reviewed their balance sheet, they need to understand how to look at their income statement. CFO services says that it’s most important for an income statement to be very simple, because then it is easy to read. Many entrepreneurs feel that they should include as much information as possible in the income statement, but all that does is makes the income statement much harder to read. Business owners can always read categorize statements later, but to get the maximum benefit of the review, it should be one page.

When they’re organizing their income statement, business owners should organize it is numerically descending order says CFO services. That way, the least significant expenses end up being at the bottom of the list, while the most expensive costs are at the top. Entrepreneurs who want to make a big impact on expenses in their business should spend their time looking at the top half of that list and where they can minimize those expenses, since those will have a greater impact on their bottom line in the entire second half of the list.

When business owners have a clear understanding of how to read their income statements as well as profit and loss statements, they can become far more proactive in their business, minimizing expenses and increasing the profits in their business.

Since 50% of all business owners close the doors to their business in five years, and 2010% of those entrepreneurs say that running out of money was the reason why their business failed said CFO services. Because of that, business owners who learn how to create their financial statements in their business, can often positively impact their business so much, that they avoid the cash flow risk in their business. It’s very important for entrepreneurs to know how to minimize expenses in their business, and when it’s most advantageous to make asset purchases as well.

Understanding financial terms can help entrepreneurs speak the language of business, and fully understand how to affect change in their business. Many business owners need to understand the difference between general expenses and direct cost. Direct cost are the costs in the business that are directly linked to doing the work of the business. This typically includes labour and supplies. The general expenses of the business says CFO services, are the overhead expenses that exist in the business whether they have jobs they are working on or not. Examples of general expenses are usually administrative staff as well as rent.

When entrepreneurs are looking at their direct costs, they may look and see that the direct costs are steadily increasing in their business, and they may panic thinking that they need to reduce their direct costs in order to stay in business. However, entrepreneurs should understand that as long as direct costs are going up proportionally with revenue, then there costs are not out of control. In fact, it’s important for business owner to know that as they create more sales in business, the costs of doing those increased sales will also go up. Looking at the direct cost along with the revenue of the business together, can help a business owner determine if they need to cut costs or if there reasonable.

Entrepreneurs should also understand the difference between gross profit and net income in their business says CFO services. The gross profit in the business is the revenue that is brought into the business, without taking into consideration any of the bills that need to get paid. The net income in the business says CFO services, is the revenue that is brought into the business minus the bills that need to be paid. I understanding the difference between the two, business owners will be less likely to see a gross profit number, and believe they have a certain amount of money in their business.

It’s extremely important that business owners understand these terms, in order to help them understand their business finances. When they clearly understand their business finances, CFO services say that entrepreneurs will be able to make better decisions in their business, which can help them stay profitable, and avoid the cash flow pitfalls that cost so many other entrepreneurs their business.