Time and again, accountants and consultants who specialise in small businesses say that such enterprises don’t pay enough attention to cash flow. That’s the measure of how much money you really have in the business.
Be Wary of Big Contracts
“Small entrepreneurs wind up taking big orders that get them in trouble,” says Ronald Lowy, who heads a college business administration department. “They want the big contract, but they’re not getting enough money at the front end of it and they don’t have the cash reserves to pay workers and other bills while they’re waiting to get paid themselves. They might show a profit on an accrual basis, but from a cash-flow standpoint, they don’t.”
Judith Dacey, a certified public accountant, calls a cash-flow statement “probably the most important thing in telling you if your business is on or off target.” As an example she describes how board members of a non-profit group were not examining their cash-flow statements.
“They were hiring people and spending money on membership campaigns, and doing all of these things based on money they thought...