Determining the value of your business: recasting the income statement
Valuing your business is something you’ll need to do if you’re about to sell it off. There are several ways to value a business, but the most reliable methods are based on cash-flows rather than profits. Here’s a piece from the You’re the Boss blog in the NY Times which gives a good example of one cash flow based method. The method uses the income statement/profit & loss account as a starting point to work out what’s often termed the owners’ cash flow. This is turn is`often combined with a multiplier (e.g. a number of years) to derive a value for a business.
(In-)Corporate(d) Social Responsibility
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a term used to describe how a business sees its responsibilities towards things like its workers, the environment, the community, customers and so on. If you look on the website of most large businesses, or in their annual reports, you’ll find something about the how the business operates in a responsible manner. Many such businesses have a separate CSR manager who reports directly to the board of directors. Mike Brooks writes in the June (2010) edition of Financial Management how some companies don’t adopt this approach, but instead have CSR embedded throughout the company. A big advantage of having CSR embedded throughout a business is that projects or plans need not be evaluated separately from a CSR perspective. Instead, being a socially responsible organisation is embedded in all roles and business processes. This method, according to Brooks, moves CSR away from a once a year mention in the annual report to something that’s hard-wired into the organisation.6 traits of successful small businesses
Here’s a recent article from Inc. magazine on some research which tries to identify the characteristics of successful small business.
Guardian Life Report Identifies Six Traits of Successful Small Businesses.
Don’t loose sight of profits and cash flows – how Lego revived its outlook
The Danish toy company Lego, has had to do a bit of re-building of late, according to Time (June 7th, 2010). Lego has been around since 1932 and has given many generations endless hours of fun (or peace if your a parent!). The product was created by an unemployed Danish carpenter (Ole Kirk Christiansen) and he patented it in 1958. Today, as anyone with kids knows, there are so many high-tech toys that compete with traditional toys like Lego, which has education and learning at its heart. This in fact was one of the contributors to Lego making large losses (e.g. $450 million in 2004) – focusing too much on the educational value of its 14,000 unique stock items. In 2004, a new CEO Jorgen Knudstorp, took the helm. He quickly reinvigorated the company by not forgetting one of the basic lessons of accounting and managing a business – the bottom line counts. There were lay-offs, plant closures and new licensing deals (Star Wars, Harry Potter for example) and some efforts to adapt the product to the digital age e.g. an online website where children can design their own creation and order a physical copy. The result – profits were $440 million in 2009. So don’t forget, now matter how good your product or service is, it can only survive if the bottom line is positive and generating cash!Risk in business
Any business faces risks at some time or another. Some may be easy to avoid or foresee, and thus measures can be taken to avoid or reduce them. Student Accountant (the ACCA’s student magazine) of June 16th last includes a feature on the recent volcanic ash cloud take caused chaos over European airspace on April this year. It might be something the airlines had not really thought about before now, but you can bet they now include disruption from volcanic ash in their assessment of business risk. The estimated losses from the disruption are in excess of $1bn – not exactly what the already recession hit airline sector needed. Can all business risks be eliminated ? Of course not, but businesses can try to minimise or reduce risks. As mentioned in the article, a four point TARA model can be used to assess risk:
No Accounting for startups?
While having a regular look on inc.com, I found this interesting blog post from Steve Blank’s blog. He writes that financial statements are not the best thing to use to monitor a start-up business. Sometimes banks or venture capitalists insist on things like regular income statements and balance sheets. While I don’t think it’s right to say “no accounting”, there is a point in the pieces in that a start-up might be much better served concentrating on more important performance indicators. Have a read and see for yourself.
How to price your products or services
Setting a price is a very important task for any business. Set the price too high and sales may not come; set it too low and you might not make money or customers might perceive your product/service as poor quality. As an accountant, I would of course first think of costs – without a clear knowledge of what your cost base is, how can you sell something at a profit. But other things determine price too, like the customer and the competition. Given that I’m sort of on holidays, and writing accordingly, here’s a great piece from inc.com that will help you set a price.
How do you measure your business performance? Ideas for small businesses
Measuring performance of any kind means a target, plan or standard must be in place to measure against. Any business, large or small needs some kind of a plan. In the accounting world plans equals budgets – yes those annoying things! A budget is plan expressed in money terms. Usually budgets for incomes and expenditures are set for a year and each month the business performance is measured against the budget. This is common practice in many businesses but how useful the comparison of results versus budget is depends on how good the budget was in the first place. Should a business complement measuring against budgets with other types of performance indicators? Yes is the answer. Larger businesses use many indicators of performance other than comparing to budgets or profits. For example, a key performance indicator for an airline is”bums on seats”. This is something that can be measured by flight, day etc and related to the costs of running the airline. Could a small business do something similar? Sure it can. Here’s an example for a business I know, Priority Engineering (www.priorityengineering.ie), who automate entrances gates for residential and business customers. This business both offers both installation and maintenance services. As a small business, the owner does not have time to do detailed plans and compare these to actual performance. But, he does know the costs of running the business. So he equates these costs to a number or service calls or installations needed per week. This is much easier to track and relates the work done to performance in terms of covering costs. So what performance indicator would you use for your business?
The use of the word ‘fair’; some thoughts for accountants
In accounting we use the word ‘fair’ a bit. ‘Fair value’ and ‘true and fair view’ are two key concepts that come to mind. But what is fair, and what is unfair. What might be fair to you, is unfair to me and so on. And then, what if we try to translate ‘fair’ into other languages. Does it retain it’s meaning. I don’t know to be honest as I’m not a linguist. But as an accountant, I’m sort of programmed to think logically and look for a definite answer. But maybe there isn’t one. To get you thinking, have a read of this piece from economist.com. It’s a bit a bit of fun on the use of the word ‘fair’ around the recent emergency budget in the UK.
How Deere & Co manage business performance
10 small business tax deductions
Ok, you’ve just started in business, you have not yet approached an accountant and you’re wondering what expenses are deductible for tax purposes? In this post I list off ten items that you can set against income for the purpose of calculating tax. I am trying to be as general as possible, but you might want to check the rules with your local tax authority in your country. I’ll assume you’re a sole trader and you operate your business from home.A netbook of laptop? Which is best for a small business owner?
It goes without say that the vast majority of business owners and entrepreneurs live with some piece of computer hardware not to far away from their person. The choice for a small business is not dictated by cost any more either. In fact, the choice is more about what you need the technology to do for your business. Here, I’ll focus on the choice between a netbook or a laptop.
What’s a netbook? The simple answer is a smaller, lighter version of a laptop. The first netbooks came a few years ago with stripped down operating systems and low disk space. This is no more. I bought a HP netbook a few weeks ago for my daughter and it has a 160GB hard disk, 1 GB of ram, full WiFi connectivity and a full version of Windows XP. So in my mind, it’s exactly like my laptop- only smaller and lighter. And all for about €250 net of VAT. So if you’re running a small business and you want to get away from a desk, should you buy a laptop or netbook? My answer is to first ask yourself three questions:
1) What is the computer used for? If it is MS Office, browsing, email and basic accounting/business software go with the netbook. If applications are more intense, like CAD or graphics, a laptop might be better.
2) Who is going to use the computer? If you’re mobile, or your staff are, netbooks are really light and portable. So are laptops, but they can cost a little more.
3) Where is the computer used? I have seen some business people use a netbook (with mobile broadband) in their car – obviously while stopped! Again, netbooks are so portable and you can think of them as a travelling version of your office PC or laptop.
Some people have said to me, ” hang on, these netbooks don’t have a CD drive, how do I install software?” Download it is the simple answer. So, given the low cost and full connectivity, netbooks are the best option in my view – unless you’re a designer or architect running heavy applications.
Want to borrow money for your business? Some questions you should be asking.
All businesses are finding it hard manage cash flow in the current economic environment. Even harder is trying to raise finance for a new business venture, for working capital or for expansion. Media reports seem to indicate that bank lending to small business is particularly difficult.
Let’s assume you do get a hearing with your local bank manager. You’d probably plan on being bombarded with questions and maybe even grovel to get the money your business needs. Why not turn this on it’s head? Why not approach a bank with a list of questions to ask? The first question would be “is your bank suited to my business needs?”. A simple question, but some banks just don’t deal with small business or particular sectors (even in good times). Christine Lagorio (Inc magazine) writes eight more questions like this (9 Questions to Ask a Small Business Lender) with the help of Bob Seiwert, a senior figure in the American Bankers Association. The questions are (click the link above to read the answers):
Does the bank have any questions about your character?
Does the bank understand your reason for borrowing?
Is the amount you’re asking for reasonable?
What’s your cash position?
What are the risks to loan repayment?
Can these risks be mitigated without adding tough terms to your loan?
Do you think my company’s financials are strong?
Do you trust me?
Read the full piece, it’s really good advice.
An example of how to save your business – NY Times
Here’s a small clip and video from the New York Times about a financial printing company, seeing decreasing business due to the economic crisis, used its goodwill to hang on in there. Read it here
How I Saved My Company: Vintage Filings – You’re the Boss Blog – NYTimes.com.
There are a few more short videos in the blog series, all of which are useful experience stories.
Emerging markets – are they still emerging?
I don’t normally delve too much into the world of economics and marketing, but this piece from The Economist (April 15th, 2010) caught my eye.
Antoine van Agtmael, a Dutch investment banker, actually coined the phrase “emerging markets” almost 30 years ago. In this time some of what were emerging markets are now the largest markets in the world – China and India for example. Market knowledge is a must for any business, even small ones, but when a business gets to the global level a detailed knowledge of (and arguably a presence in) all global markets is a must – emerging markets included. Van Agtmael cautions though on the use of the term “emerging markets”. Some markets, for example China, Brazil, South Korea and Mexico, have not only emerged, but upstaged developed economies. For example, the SamSung brand from South Korea is one of the worlds best known electronics brands. Perhaps a mindset change is needed to appreciate the business challenges of some economies which have now well and truly emerged.
Here’s a link to the full article: Schumpeter: An emerging challenge | The Economist.
Martin's accounting blog 