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Profitable on paper, empty bank account: where the gap between cash flow and profit comes from
Your P&L says you made money, but the online banking balance gets tighter every month. The books are not wrong. You are reading "profit" as …
TOPIC 07 / 08
Finance & accounting
Cash flow, margin, receivables, month-end. Read the numbers to find where money leaks.
16 articlesStart with these three
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Which customer is actually losing you money? Calculating gross margin by customer
Your biggest customer by revenue is not necessarily your most profitable one. This post shows you how to break gross margin down from "produ…
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From order to cash: every stage one order passes through your company
Strong at winning orders but slow to collect? The problem usually isn't one department. It's the handoffs between departments. This post fol…
All articles 16
How to connect ERP and accounting software: three approaches and what each costs
You have an ERP. You have accounting software. At the start of every month, the accountant still spends days moving data from one to the oth…
The report keeps changing? How to scope report requirements without wasting money
Three versions in and the report still isn't what the boss wanted. The engineer built it straight from the Excel file, and finance says the …
Seeing the books and inventory of several group companies as one
Add up three companies' reports and revenue comes out higher than reality, inventory gets counted twice, and the same customer has three cod…
From order to cash: every stage one order passes through your company
Strong at winning orders but slow to collect? The problem usually isn't one department. It's the handoffs between departments. This post fol…
How to build a cash flow forecast: see the next 13 weeks of cash gaps
If you only find out at month-end whether you can make payroll, you found out too late. This post shows you how to build a rolling 13-week c…
Getting paid as a one-person company: quotations, deposits, installments and reconciliation
The job is done but the money never comes in? When freelance payments get stuck, the problem was usually planted the moment you sent the quo…
How to use AI in accounting and finance: automating reconciliation, journal entries and reports
What eats most of an accountant's month-end usually isn't closing the books. It's figuring out who sent this money. This post splits finance…
Fixing stuck expense reimbursements: receipts, approvals, booking
Employees wait weeks to get back money they fronted. Accounting spends month-end chasing people about a stack of faded receipts. The owner s…
Which customer is actually losing you money? Calculating gross margin by customer
Your biggest customer by revenue is not necessarily your most profitable one. This post shows you how to break gross margin down from "produ…
Month-end close takes a week? How to cut it to two days
Accounting can't be disturbed from the 1st to the 7th, and the owner doesn't know last month's profit until after the 10th? A slow close usu…
Accounts receivable aging: how to do it, and which money you may never collect
A normal-looking receivables total does not mean the money will come in. This post walks through aging analysis step by step: count days ove…
Cash flow for a one-person company: get paid first, zero receivables at delivery
The biggest threat to a one-person company isn't failing to win work. It's finishing the work and not getting paid. This post explains why c…
Statements That Don't Get Paid Late: Monthly Billing, Check Terms, and Reconciliation in Practice
Your monthly payments keep dragging, and you assume the customer's credit is bad. Often it's your statement that gives them a reason to wait…
Why your quotations keep getting margin wrong: three cost black holes the shop floor never reports
Orders every month, margin built into every quotation, yet the year-end number comes in far below what you expected. The problem usually isn…
Profitable on paper, empty bank account: where the gap between cash flow and profit comes from
Your P&L says you made money, but the online banking balance gets tighter every month. The books are not wrong. You are reading "profit" as …
Your costs are probably wrong: the costing blind spots in small manufacturers
"We ran the margin. It makes money. Take it." Plenty of owners have a cost sheet that looks clean and orderly, yet has no column for "how ma…