Starting a small business is a big step. Because it is a big step, people often ask for ideas or advice about what they should do first. Over the years, we’ve come up with a laundry list of ideas and comments. Here they are: Idea #1: Stay upbeat. While the conventional wisdom says you’re likely to … [Read more...] about Starting a Small Business
Business Planning
Customizing the Business Planning Starter Workbook
You can use the business planning starter workbook for many business projections. However, you might want to change the starter workbook so that it more closely matches your requirements. For example, you can add text that describes the business and the forecasting horizon. You can increase or … [Read more...] about Customizing the Business Planning Starter Workbook
Understanding the Business Planning Starter Workbook’s Calculations
The business planning starter workbook has seven parts: the inputs forecast, Balance Sheet, Common Size Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Common Size Income Statement, Cash Flow Statement, and Financial Ratios Table. I want to briefly describe the calculations that occur within each of these parts in … [Read more...] about Understanding the Business Planning Starter Workbook’s Calculations
Using the Business Planning Starter Workbook
You can use the business planning starter workbook, shown in Figures 10-1 through 10-5, to construct pro forma financial statements that let you forecast profits and losses, financial condition, and cash flows for a business or organization. To use the workbook, you develop and then enter … [Read more...] about Using the Business Planning Starter Workbook
Easy Refresher: Financial Statements and Ratios
Financial statements describe either the past or the future financial condition and performance of a business. The term financial statement can refer to one of several types of schedules and summaries of economic information. Typically, however, the term describes a set of documents that include an … [Read more...] about Easy Refresher: Financial Statements and Ratios
Setting Up A Washington LLC
Setting up an LLC, or limited liability company, in Washington State is extremely easy. You only need to step through a simple, online wizard (available here) or fill out and then submit a simple two page form (available here) in order to form the entity. And both the wizard and the form ask for … [Read more...] about Setting Up A Washington LLC