Hot answers tagged financial
6
The most important thing you can do is communicate your situation to them. Give them a heads up if you will have issues paying them. Don't wait till the last minute or hide from their phone calls. Most vendors will work with you to resolve any issues as long as you are open and honest with them.
You do have to be sincere in your desire to pay them ...
6
In the agreements that I work on, the typical approach is that the payee has the right to audit the payer's accounting records. If an underpayment is discovered, the payer pays the underpayment amount plus interest. If the underpayment exceeds X% of the amount due, the payer also reimburses the payee for the cost of the audit.
I don't know whether this ...
6
Bookkeeping software (like Quickbooks) is complimentary to an accountant, not an alternative.
Your business has financial, tax, and possibly payroll responsibilities. A qualified CPA will help you setup and maintain the appropriate financial records your business will need to meet all of these obligations.
You can read, research and learn to do all of ...
3
In general, I would suggest at least having a bookkeeper. The primary responsibilities of a bookkeeper are to ensure that your financial data is accurate and current at all times. Also, the role of bookkeeping should not be reduced to just data entry. A good bookkeeper will have a strong working knowledge of the chart of accounts, debits and credits, journal ...
3
You can try Sedar, Canada's equivalent to SEC.
With that said, there are different methods available. Though the following is primarily for the US market, it may be somewhat applicable outside the US.
First, companies (public or private) that earn a certain amount of revenue per year are often required to file forms with the SEC (Securities and Exchange ...
3
First things first: You're now operating a business. By most standards, once you start selling a product or service, you're a business. In most jurisdictions, if you aren't properly licensed, you can find yourself in a bit of a legal bind with your local or federal authority, even if you think of yourself as just a bunch of friends working on a common ...
3
Consultancy is a direct billable hours model. Here's how it works:
•Desired Salary / Yearly Hours Worked (i.e. 40 per week * 52 weeks = 2080 but substract vacation and training time)
•Suppose 75,000 / 2080 = $36.06 per hour is your company's cost.
•Gross up the $36.06 by a factor of 2 or 3.5. $36.07 * 3.5 = $126.25
•You'll charge the client $126.25 per ...
2
There is no particular organization to help you. They are in business to help themselves and are highly unlikely to be of help to you since they get approached by 1000s of entrepreneur and their accept rate is likely below 1%.
Here are some ideas for early funding. NONE are a walk in the park.
- Friends and Family
- Savings
- Pitch angels
- Have the ...
2
Cash is king. Everything you spend money on at this delicate moment should be focused directly at bringing in customers and securing sales. That means a business plan can wait.
I would focus on using your web site to drive sales. It's the greatest amount of bang for the buck. Consider an inbound marketing strategy that focuses on providing valuable content ...
2
I'm not sure what you should spend your money on, but I know what you shouldn't spend your money on:
A designer/programmer for your website. You can buy great looking designs for Wordpress or Drupal. You can also pay $20-50/month to sell via something like Shopify.
A business plan that costs any money. $3.5k for a business plan? Write it yourself. Then ...
2
If in the service you operate you're acting as a financial intermediary, that's a whole specialist area with regulatory and legal implications.
The most common reason to want to hold customer deposits is the case where you have offerings that cost small amounts of money, and the service provider 'take' is prohibitive. For instance, customers can buy stuff ...
2
Nick, answers to some of your question:
Balance Sheet/Equity - Assuming that your investment is in the form of stock (not a convertible note) and this is an S-Corp or C-Corp you would add this to capital stock. Technically, if the stock has a nominal par value (say $0.01/share) you would have two entries. First would be "Capital Stock" at the par value. ...
2
If your sales projections can be met, you are giving away too much of your equity.
So instead of making your product feature rich, try to get it out in beta mode to few clients at a a discounted price (say x% of the actual price). Try to offer the discount for a fixed period so that you don't loose money when you are ready to launch your full product. The ...
2
These figures are always going to be rough and there will be a multitude of books written on the subject, but in a nutshell.
If you really have no idea as to what your projections should look like, I suspect you may not have conducted sufficient market research.
Market research isn't limited to 'the industry in area X that I'm targeting is worth $5B and I ...
2
There are a few like that:
NYSE TAQ
One Tick
K DB
Problem is this is costly and redistribution license would be even costlier.
1
Most Bookkeeper are qualified to be accountants. I would suggest you look for a bookkeeper first. Quickbooks is a software that generates financial reports (set up the chart of accounts proper). A bookkeeper can read and analyze financial reports and in turn provide you feedback. If you are lucky with the right bookkeeper, he/she may file your taxes for a ...
1
You probably don't need an accountant for a small business. Bookkeeping might be beneficial, depends on how good you are doing it on your own, and how much time you have to spend on it. A good tax adviser is a must before you do anything though, but it doesn't have to be an on-going retainer.
But it really depends on the type of business. If its a software ...
1
Step 1 - Determining Size of the Market
You could get access to analyst reports that cover your industry or a particular company such as Groupon. The more meaty analyst reports provide "size of the market" and other industry specific information. If you have access to a brokerage account you can probably get one for free or inexpensively otherwise the ...
1
If you know the number of employees you can estimate the revenue multiplying this number by some average 'revenue per employee' (which is around 250k), there you can find some samples:
http://www.jbryanscott.com/2009/02/07/nasdaq-100-revenue-per-employee/
1
You need to re-evaluate your costs. There is no business that investors will want to invest in that costs $95/mo to operate. You need to talk staff salaries, marketing, hard costs, etc. Agreed with Jean-Pierre, why ask for funds if this is all it takes?
If you want investor backing, get serious with your financials.
Good luck!
1
I guess a pitch deck is meant for investors. If that is the case, why looking for investors if your costs are 95 per month? That can be easily be paid with 1 evening per week selling burgers at McDonalds...
But answering your question, what I did was putting the funds out/in/needed from a cash flow analysis and what was the cost structure (simple pie ...
1
Factors for a general sale of an established product and business model is pretty much what someone else is prepared to pay for it VS what you would be willing to let it go for.
So lets assume I'm a prospective buyer, what comes to mind?
Good points. You have an existing market and user base which could be monitiesed.
Bad points. You don't have a ...
1
The going rate for a London city IT contractor (in banking / hedge funds) is £500 - £700 per day. This is for the independent (one man Ltd company) with 10 years experience in the field. The going rate for a Lab49 or thoughtworks style consultant is £600 (2 years exp) - £2000 (senior / PM level) per day.
Crazy isn't it?
However if you're a large ...
1
If you have an idea / product your building then have a look at these crowdFunding sites:
http://www.kickstarter.com/
http://rockethub.com/
http://www.pozible.com.au/index.php
http://www.quirky.com/
http://www.fundbreak.com.au/
http://www.catwalkgenius.com/
http://en.fansnextdoor.com/
http://www.indiegogo.com/
http://www.cofundos.org/
...
1
All of the folks in Genadinik's very good list are going to have one critical question for you:
How do you make money?
In fact, the answer to the question of how you will make money will greatly inform your search for start-up funds for your webmail business.
Once the folks that you are talking to understand how you are going to make money, then they ...
1
I think you got it right.
All you have to do is change the amounts of revenue that you expect to receive during any given period. For the lowwater mark, use a conservative, low forecast. Let's say 5 million. And for the highwater mark, use high numbers. Maybe 10 million in revenues. Also, bear in mind, that high revenues usually require high expenses ...
1
I would recommend Microsoft SharePoint, it's very useful for storing data and allowing collaborative efforts on projects. Also allowing for only certain individuals to access files with security log in. I got a quote for sharepoint document management and also found them to be a great research resource.
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