A number of business owners look at accounting as an inconvenience, something they rush through when paying their bills and updating the register. At worst, entrepreneurs consider accounting and bookkeeping a distraction from their core mission and avoid doing it at all.
However, business accounting is critical to keeping the doors of your business open long-term. And letting someone else do the work is not always the most beneficial or safest option either. Thankfully, eLearning now makes it possible for business owners to learn the basics of accounting while still running their business. Let’s look at why every business owner should consider learning to account online.
Your Success Depends on It
You can’t earn a profit if you aren’t tracking income relative to expenses. Spend more than you bring in, and you will eventually close your doors. Poor cash management can kill your business, too. Your business could fold if you fail to pay your taxes or employees on time. The success of your business depends on setting a budget and living by it, balancing the books, and adjusting your financial strategy when necessary. For example, if you can determine the profit margin for each product, you can drop items you’re losing money on and market the products with the highest profit margin. You’ll dramatically increase profits without having to work twice as hard.
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Accounting Can Affect the Opportunities You Have
Your business has to be able to show that it earns a certain profit margin if it wants to attract investors. You can’t qualify for grants if you don’t have a set of clean books. You may lose out on opportunities if you don’t manage your cash flow, like not having the money to buy an inventory lot at a crucial time, for instance. Fail to track your expenses and make sure bills are paid, and you may not be allowed to sign the lease for the bigger store or buy items on credit.
You’re also going to have issues if you don’t understand how to read financial statements. At a minimum, a business owner must be able to understand a balance sheet, income statement, statement of retained earnings and cash flow statement, especially if you’re thinking of merging with someone else somewhere in the future. If you don’t have this knowledge, you might partner with someone who isn’t financially stable and risk everything.
A Failure to Understand Accounting Can be Costly
If you don’t track your account balances relative to the bills you have to pay, you will waste money on unnecessary fees like overdraft fees and late charges. If you aren’t managing your books, you are at increased risk of being audited. You may have to pay back taxes and penalties because you can’t argue with the IRS. Or you have to pay an accountant to clean up your books.
If you have more advanced accounting knowledge, you could generate key financial statements upon request instead of having to run to your accountant every time. Services like findcourses.com will allow you to find all sorts of online accounting training courses, including bookkeeping courses that could save you from having to pay a bookkeeper. Their courses will give you the ability to run these reports yourself so you can monitor the financial health of your business on a regular basis and deal with problems as soon as they arise. This same information will allow you to better plan for the future.
If you don’t track expenses, you may not realize how much you’re spending or over-spending in various categories. Then you end up wasting money that could have been reinvested in the business or claimed as profit.
Will Help your Draft Better Business Plans
Every business should be built on a solid business plan, and business owners, especially new entrepreneurs launching startups, often have no idea how to generate a realistic and accurate one. But people who have a thorough understanding of accounting will be able to create sound business plans and will be able to see into the future of their business better.
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They will be able to forecast sales much more accurately and will also be able to get access to financing much easier than people who don’t know how to crunch numbers. Lenders respect accountants and people who have real accounting knowledge and showing that you have expertise will impress them and show that you are much less of a liability. You also won’t risk making a fool out of yourself by setting outlandish projections for your business.
Accounting is perhaps as important to business owners as their expertise in the industry in which they work. Every business owner should have at least a basic understanding of accounting and the knowledge necessary to maintain accurate records. Make sure that you look at all the training options available and find one that will give you a solid foundation that you can start building on.
| About the Guest Author:
Rosana Beechum