SMB FinanceOS
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WHAT MY TODDLER TAUGHT ME ABOUT BUSINESS STRATEGY
We're taking a little detour this week. I was traveling last week and came home to a sick family, which in turn resulted in multiple family members ending up in the hospital from dehydration. We're all good now, but still recovering. While I have a draft, I am exhausted and wanted to give the debt management post one more week to marinate in my head. So, we're republishing an *older* post where I compare persistence versus stubbornness through the eyes of my toddler boy. If you were forwarded...
CAPITALOS 4: YOU’RE NOT SPENDING TOO MUCH, JUST SPENDING STUPID
YOU’RE NOT SPENDING TOO MUCH, JUST SPENDING STUPID (A STRATEGIC SPENDING FRAMEWORK) read on smbfinanceos.com Joe had a great year. His regional HVAC company crossed $8 million in revenue for the first time. Margins were solid, reviews were glowing, and for the first time in a while, there was real breathing room in the bank account. Flush with optimism and a little adrenaline, Joe decided it was time to level up. So he did what a lot of owners do after a big year: he started spending like a...
CAPITALOS 3: START TRACKING THIS NUMBER TODAY (STEADY-STATE CASH FLOW)
START TRACKING THIS NUMBER TODAY (STEADY-STATE CASH FLOW) read on smbfinanceos.com Ask a business owner how things are going and you’ll probably hear about revenue. Maybe headcount. Maybe new logos or new offices. What you won’t hear? “We’re generating $150K of real, usable cash every year after taxes, debt, and CapEx.” And that’s a problem. Too many businesses operate off what I call the iceberg illusion. They see the tip above the water (profit, the bank balance, the sales report) and think...
CAPITALOS 2: THE BUSINESS OWNER’S GUIDE TO THE 2 TYPES OF CAPEX
CAPITALOS 2: THE BUSINESS OWNER’S GUIDE TO THE 2 TYPES OF CAPEX read on smbfinanceos.com CapEx doesn’t hit your books every month, so it’s easy to ignore until something breaks. A truck, a laptop, or a machine you can’t operate without. Early in my CFO career, I worked in a low-capex business and just hit my groove… then multiple trucks broke down at once. No plan. No budget. Just stress. I’d failed to plan and felt like a complete newb. I wasn’t alone. Most businesses don’t treat CapEx as a...
CASHOS 6/CAPITALOS 1: FROM CASH FLOW MANAGER TO CAPITAL ALLOCATOR
Last week, we talked about bucketing your cash. I mentioned we’d talk about strategic cash last week, but I didn’t tell you about my change of plans: we’re going to dive deep into CapitalOS. We’re “skipping” over the last two weeks of CashOS and will revisit those after we talk about CapitalOS. Why the change, you ask? We changed because, as I started trying to frame out those weeks, I realized we’d hit on many of the CapitalOS concepts. The reality is, cash rules and your cash systems should...
CASHOS WEEK 5: THE FORMULA FOR CASH RESERVES THAT COULD SAVE YOUR BUSINESS
THE FORMULA FOR CASH RESERVES THAT COULD SAVE YOUR BUSINESS read on smbfinanceos.com Have you ever been in the position where you didn’t have enough money for payroll the next day? I remember the one time I got that call. It was early in the morning. Over the weekend I’d talked to the owner and let them know the deposit that we were expecting before the weekend hadn’t come, but I’d been assured it’d deposit in our account on Monday. Monday morning it wasn’t there, so we called the bank and...
CASHOS WEEK 4: WHY YOU’RE RICH ON PAPER, BUT HAVE NO CASH (CCC)
WHY YOU’RE RICH ON PAPER, BUT HAVE NO CASH (CCC) read on smbfinanceos.com A few years back, as I was onboarding a new client, we started talking about cash. “We’re profitable, but where is the cash?!?” he asked. It’s a great question. And a question I’ve heard more than a few times since in this form or others. Why can’t I make payroll?I can’t afford my next run of inventory… what gives?These taxes are killing me. How can I pay them if I don’t have money? These are all a root of the same...
CASHOS WEEK 3: THIS WEEKLY HABIT WILL TRANSFORM YOUR BUSINESS (THE 13-WEEK CASH FLOW FORECAST)
Your Weekly Cash Habit: THE 13-WEEK CASH FLOW FORECAST read on smbfinanceos.com “Wait… we’re short on cash?” Those are momentum-killing words. You’re cruising along… sales are up, customers are happy, your team is buzzing… and then it hits: payroll’s due Friday, and the account’s lighter than expected. Cue stress, credit card transfers, or that awkward vendor call. Surprises like this don’t just hurt your finances. They wreck your confidence. They pull you out of strategy mode and back into...
CASHOS WEEK 2: THE 3 JOBS OF CASH
THE 3 JOBS OF CASH (and the Real Statement You Should Care About) read on smbfinanceos.com You’ve got cash in the bank, but what does it mean? Is it good, bad, or neither? Can it be spent? Or is it already committed to taxes, payroll, or equipment maintenance? For most businesses, these are unanswerable questions because they don’t have a good sense of their cash and cash flows. In this series, we’re going to approach this problem from a number of different angles so that in the future you...
INTRODUCING CASH OS: A SYSTEM FOR MANAGING CASH & CASH FLOW
Hey everyone, before we jump into the article, I want to share a few things with you. Today marks a few different transitions for this newsletter. First, we're cutting sponsors (for now). I've been intentional about only promoting what I truly think is a good solution for you, but as time went along, I started asking a bigger question: why am I promoting someone else when I could just promote myself? So, for now, this will just be a labor of love. If you want to support us, there are three...
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