Comments on: Small Biz 101: Know your balance sheet

By: Above Function

Above Function — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 23:01:00 +0000

Brilliant, I’ve just started my own studio and I’m in very early stages…. but all this comes with my accounting app – FreeAgent. (www.freeagentcentral.com)

It has some of the best reporting tools going and sure is a life saver to myself as a startup, it’s really cheap as well so no complaints.

Great article Ryan I’ll make sure i monitor this on an ongoing basis.

By: Carol

Carol — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:36:44 +0000

Have to agree with Mike.

By: Mike Poskitt

Mike Poskitt — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:09:38 +0000

Probably a one-off visit, but I think Quickbooks is really easy to use for a non-accountant and easily exports to Excel for reports writing (I guess only good if you’re happy with Excel!). I reckon it knocks the spots off Sage (which I really don’t like!).

By: Ryan Carson

Ryan Carson — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 13:39:39 +0000

The Portable MBA in Finance and Accounting

Thanks for the tip Adonis. I’ll check that one out.

By: Adonis Lamar

Adonis Lamar — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 06:24:26 +0000

As a finance student, I completely agree with Allen. I haven’t had the opportunity to read the titles mentioned in the other comments, but I would strongly suggest that one read “The Portable MBA in Finance and Accounting.” It explains the significance of financial statements and their relationships to one another and the business as a whole. I have found it to be an excellent reference.

By: Ryan Carson

Ryan Carson — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 00:37:10 +0000

Thanks Allen – I heartily agree!

By: Allen

Allen — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 19:56:52 +0000

Ryan – as a former public accountant, I can share with you that the balance sheet(BS) is not the only measure of a company’s worth. In fact, usually the Income Statement(IS) and Statement of Cash Flows are much more important.

Quickbooks is a good tool for a small business (I am thinking you might be bigger than QB can handle) but as a company grows, using a real accountant can always be good. Especially for tax time which I hear is even worse in the UK.

The balance sheet shows you the balance of assets and liabilities you have accumulated for the specific period of time.

But as you note, the combo of the BS and IS is the real key.

Also – it is critical that one understands how a balance sheet works. As I worked with clients in my former life, I know that many times they are completely confused as to why an account like cash would be debited to increase value and not credited to increase value.

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 17:04:42 +0000

I’ve been using Quickbooks for a small RE biz and I’ve found that it is no good at keeping track of the ACTUAL value of assets as it is too focused on keeping track of the BOOK value of the assets.

In an asset based buisness like RE, the distortion is very significant.

By: Ryan Carson

Ryan Carson — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 06:12:30 +0000

I just read a book I bought from Amazon called â€œFinance for Non-financial Managers in a Weekâ€

Great suggestion. That's a good book. Another quality book is Analysing Companies

By: Ryan Carson

Ryan Carson — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 06:12:00 +0000

I just read a book I bought from Amazon called â€œFinance for Non-financial Managers in a Weekâ€

Great suggestion. That's a good book. Another quality book is Analysing Companies

By: Ryan Carson

Ryan Carson — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 06:10:44 +0000

Thanks Jon :)

By: Peter Cooper

Peter Cooper — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 05:42:46 +0000

I just read a book I bought from Amazon called “Finance for Non-financial Managers in a Week” which went into how to make and read balance sheets, P&L statements, and all sorts of other things. It’s really short and a quick, easy read.. so I’d recommend it to anyone else who wants to get up to speed with these things (or who just needs a refresher).

By: Jon Leighton

Jon Leighton — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 22:45:49 +0000

I hate to be an annoying pedantic person, but someone has to do it, so I think you meant “You’re” rather than “Your” in the first subtitle.

By: Blake P.

Blake P. — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 22:45:06 +0000

We work the same way because of Quickbooks’ inadequacies. Paying the extra amount for the accountant is worth every penny. Especially around tax time.

By: Matt Carey

Matt Carey — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 20:12:09 +0000

Interesting that you use QuickBooks. Ever since we started our studio (4 years ago) we have been using Sage. Yes it only runs on a PC, but it is pretty much the industry standard for accountants and bookkeepers. It has great reporting, P&L etc, and we know that our bookkeeper just sends the sage file to our accountant at regular intervals and it will all tie-in perfectly.

I used to have Sage running on virtual PC on my powerbook so I could read the Sage file that our bookkeeper sent us each month/quarter, but now with my MBP and Parallels Desktop it runs great