Virtual CFO | Understanding Profit And Loss Statements

There are several things that business owners need to understand it comes to income statements and profit and loss statements can help with them. First thing that business owners can learn when it comes to understanding business finances is: is revenue added to the income statement at the time of invoicing, or at the date of the payment? Virtual CFO says this is a common misconception that businesses have. Business owners often believe that it appears on the statement once they receive the money, but this is not true. It will show up on the income statement as soon as it is invoiced. But business owners need to understand that is because it is in the income statement, doesnít mean they got paid for it. Business owners should get used to this lag when it comes to invoicing in business, because this is very common in business.

Business owners also need to understand why the sudden increase in revenue in place strain on their cash flow. Virtual CF says most business owners believe that when revenue increases drastically, that is just increased profit, many business owners donít take into account that when the revenue goes up, their expenses will also go up. The reason why this can create problems within the business, is because even though revenue is increased, donít get paid until later. However the increased expenses will need to be paid immediately. Businesses that are not ready for that increase in expenses can often run into extremely tight cash flow because they have to pay used to and they have a baby it.

Often when businesses use cash to buy assets, they believe their profit and loss statement should be affected, but when they buy assets using cash, it comes out of their bank right away, but it shows up on the profit and loss statement differently. This may lead to business owners seeing much less money in the bank account, and nothing to show for it on the profit and loss statement. By understanding why that is, business owners can be assured that they do have something to show for that missing money.

By helping business owners understand their finances just a little bit more, they can increase their chances of business success and eliminate one of the top three reasons why business owners fail in business. Virtual CFO says increasing financial literacy in business owners will go a long way.

50% of all businesses in Canada go out of business within five years says virtual CFO. 29% of those failed businesses will say that running out of cash was the reason why their business failed. This is an extremely high amount of businesses that not only go out of business, but go business because they ran out of money. One of the ways that businesses can avoid this is by becoming financially literate in their own businesses and understanding some common financial problems in their business. Understanding these problems, businesses can make better business decisions, and avoid increase their chances of success.

One of the things that business owners need to understand business is why they have no money in the bank, but it shows that they have a profit says virtual CF. Business owners need to understand that when they have the bills, as soon as they receive money from their clients, they will put that money towards their bills, so it shows us having no money in the bank account. But those bills had previously hit the income statement earlier when the invoice happened. So business owners need to get used to that lag. Between when invoices are received and put on the income statement, and when the money is paid towards that bill. By understanding that, businesses are already farther along to eliminating cash flow problems in their business

Business owners also need to understand how dividends and loans show up in the income statement and how it affects profit and loss the business. Dividends and loans will never show up income statement says virtual CFO, and the business owner must be diligent in taking in more profit each month than the business is paying out in dividends and loans. If the business ownerís taking in more profit than what they are paying out, they will run into a cash flow problem. Business owners should make it a regular plan to get there profit and loss statement as well as the statement in order to avoid this common pit fall.

Business owners also need to understand how their billing cycle can greatly affect their cash flow says virtual CF. The reason for that is the longer it takes a business owner to invoice their clients, the longer itís going to take them to get the money for that bill. Virtual CFO recommends why do monthly, when a business owner can build weekly? If business owners can eliminate amount of time it takes for a customer will pay them, business owners can create a situation where they are getting money in weekly rather than monthly, which can go a long way to eliminating cash flow problems in a business. The goodwill of them for businesses to follow when it comes to billing is Bill Earley and Bill often. Business owners can also work towards lowering their terms, 30 day terms to as low as their customers will tolerate.