What is a KPI?

A KPI is a Key Performance Indicator.  Not just any performance indicator.  A KEY performance indicator.  The term KPI is used in business to describe the most important measures that tell you how your business is performing. KPIs help you figure out where there are opportunities for improvement.  Remember, “What gets measured, gets done.”  So [...]

Financial Projections as a Secret Weapon?

Philip Campbell writes on his blog: One of the secrets to creating credibility and trust with everyone who is financially invested in the success of your company is providing them financial projections. http://campbellphilip.typepad.com/blog/2011/11/are-financial-statements-your-secret-weapon.html Philip argues that doing full financial projections – including a full Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statements – puts you [...]

What is “Days of Cash?”

Days of cash is a measure of how much cash a company has in relation to its monthly operating expenses.  It helps answer the question, “How much cash do I need?”  It also allows you to track your company’s performance over time, or to compare companies of different sizes. As with Cash itself – more [...]

Newt Gingrich learns about managing cash flow the hard way

Running a political campaign can be a lot like starting up a business.  Things change quickly, and you really have to keep an eagle eye on the cash flow. Yesterday’s Washington Post (10/30/2011) had a page 1 article about Newt’s improving fortunes in the presidential race.  (Newt Gingrich: GOP’s consummate survivor is back on his [...]

What is Cash Flow?

According to Wikipedia, Cash flow is the movement of cash into or out of a business, project, or financial product. The trouble is that you run into all sorts of qualifiers and distractions.  There is Net Cash Flow, Free Cash Flow, Discounted Cash Flow, Pre-tax Cash Flow, After-tax Cash Flow, Cash In-Flows, Cash Out-Flows, etc., [...]

Romancing the Loan – a must read for anyone wanting to borrow from a bank

Review of  “Romancing the Loan”  14 Principals for opening your lender’s vault. Revealing the Secret Combination to YES.  By Larry Tyler Forward by Philip Campbell, Author, Never Run Out of Cash I first met Larry over the phone a few weeks ago.  He had come highly recommended by Philip Campbell.  All I knew was that [...]

The Three Pillars of Financial Management in the Small Enterprise

Entrepreneurs have to pay attention to financial management to grow their companies successfully.  You have to make sure you make profits.  You have to develop confidence in others that you know your company’s finances.  You have to make sure you don’t run out of cash.  And you have to make sure that marketing and other [...]

Keep the books, or pay someone else to do it

That is a famous line in Philip Campbell’s book,  “Never Run Out of Cash.”  (www.neverrunoutofcash.com)  Philip equates keeping the books in a small business to doing the dishes at home.  If you let them pile up, bad things happen. So yeah, I had been letting things slide while devoting 110% of my time to product [...]

ETL – Extraction, Translation, and Loading

224.0   Do a Google search on ETL, and you find you’ve uncovered an entire industry.  I bet you didn’t know this:  there is a website called www.ETLTool.com devoted to following this market.  They help with research and case studies, and you can even buy their report that compares the top 18 offerings.   Vendors [...]

KPI Series – Inventory Turnover Ratio

  If you are a retailer or a wholesaler, your biggest investment is more than likely your inventory.  Turning that inventory over quickly is critical to your success. So it makes sense for you to monitor this measure and do what you can to improve your performance.  In general, the higher your Inventory Turnover Ratio, [...]