Own Your Financials!!
It’s all about confidence..
And you should have that in all aspects of your business.
What does that mean? How do you do that? Why should you do that?
I've talked about what your financials are (that is, P&L, balance sheet, cash flow statement) so if you've been following my podcast or blog, you'll know all about those already. But whose responsibility are those? Your bookkeeper? Your CPA? Well those folks prepare them for you but you, my dear business owner, founder, entrepreneur, you own those.
On a very basic level, you own it from a data perspective. The transactions are yours. The numbers are yours. Where they go on your P&L is dictated, by you (for the most part). So why do you rely solely on your bookkeeper or CPA to alert you to what's happening? You should be reviewing this information on a monthly basis either on your own or with your accountant.
On a higher level, you own the results of your business. You should be working with someone who can and will walk you through your financial performance in a way that makes you feel empowered. You should not be embarrassed to asked questions or be made to feel stupid because you don't understand the impact of a trend or metric.
Think of it this way…
If you had a legal question, would you feel embarrassed asking your attorney for clarification before signing a document? No. If you had a medical question, would you be embarrassed to ask your healthcare provider for more information before making a decision - also no. Business finance is the same thing but far too many accountants and bookkeepers are not the greatest communicators. We work with numbers (your numbers!) all day every day so they make perfect sense to us. But we forget that things are not as obvious to someone else.
And here's an even more important point, accountants get super close to this information so sometimes they lose their ability to look at things from a new perspective or from a 30,000 foot level or with the legacy knowledge that only a founder or business owner can bring. Your input is as valuable or more valuable than anyone else's.
Get reports in a format that makes sense to you…
We all receive and process information differently. It's more rare than you think for someone to be gifted creatively AND analytically as well. Those who can easily interpret spreadsheets and financial statements don't always grasp the visuality of graphs and charts. Conversely, those who are super visual can't always as easily absorb information that is not presented in a graph or chart. Neither is wrong but you do need to be working with someone who understands how you best receive financial reporting and who will provide that to you.
These are your results. These are your numbers. You should understand them better than anyone else out there. Keep asking the questions and keep asking for it to be presented to you in a way that makes you feel confident as the founder of your amazing company.
Need help in owning those financials? Reach out to dk east associates! You’ve got this!
