Managing by the Numbers: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Using Your Company's Financials

EXCERPTED From Chapter 3 (The Numbers That Count: Acknowledge the Rules), Page 72*At the end of this chapter, I refer to several terrific books that delve into much greater detail of these aspects, and I highly recommend that you read them. At the bare minimum, you need to understand the basics. Folks who speak the language of finance use three financial statements; the income statement, the balance sheet, and cash flow. Each set of numbers tracks a different function. Each one is important for your business. (Note: I highly recommend the terrific book Managing by the Numbers by Chuck Kremer et. al.-see "Resources" at the end of the chapter.) The balance sheet provides what experts call a "snapshot" of your business's financial condition at one particular point in time. Think of this statement as what your business owns and what it owes. This statement lists your assets (what the business owns or is due), your liabilities (what the business owes), and difference between assets and liabilities, which is called owner's equity. This sheet is constructed so that your assets minus your liabilities necessarily equal the owner's equity; thus, when it is produced correctly, the sums are balanced. The income statement tracks your company's profitability over a given period of time. It says whether, in a specific period, you made money or didn't. But, and this is a huge but, it's an abstraction. It shows the promises that people have made to pay you money, and the agreements you have made to pay others. "It shows whether you're making money on the goods and services you provide, once you have taken all your costs and expenses into account. But it isn't real," write Kremer et al. It doesn't show how much cash you've put in you bank account or how much cash you spent." Income statements are subject to manipulation. Because income statements are subject to intangible factors such as depreciation (which tracks how an asset loses value over time), you can show a profit-or loss-that is not directly tied to your activities in that span of time. Moreover, income statements count promises that others have made to you as actual income, while the daily reality may be quite different. So these statements indicate profitability-which is good-but they don't necessarily reflect your daily, actual situation. For that you have cash flow. Cash flow is, very simply, the difference between your cash receipts and your cash expenditures. It's what you have left after you spend the money that you take in. Consider this measure to be your business checkbook; what cash is actually coming into your business and what is actually being spent? There is no fudging cash. It's what you have on hand-the balance in your account.EXCERPTED FROM Chapter 3 (The Numbers That Count: Resources), Page 93*Managing the Numbers by Chuck Kremer and Ron Rizzuto with John Case (Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2000) This gem limns the theory and practice of financial m

I find the book Managing by the numbers to be a good desk reference when working with company income statements. I also find that as I go along and learn I need the book less as its very helpful in making a complicated subject easy to understand. I feel its blessing that I found the book and would be lost without it. Numbers have become fun.William J. Webb

I got half-way into this book before it was time to take my vacation in Italy. Would a (relatively) sane person take a finance book to Tuscany? Yes, if this is the book! It beautifully connects the dots on various key financial concepts, making them ACCESSABLE and USEFUL. Managing By The Numbers goes beyond good writing, which it has aplenty, to good thinking: it introduces a way to think about money that is as compelling as it is elegant.Thank you, dear authors, for dispelling the fog and, at least for this business owner, handing over some dandy tools.

The authors do a great job of de-mystifying accounting. Finance is the language of business, and everyone, especially entrepreneurs, should know the basics. How else will you know the score? The need for this knowledge applies whether you are watching your business or the company that you work for.The centerpiece of MANAGING BY THE NUMBERS is the "Financial Scoreboard" (a.k.a. Mobley Matrix), a clever way to visualize the interrelationships between starting and ending balance sheets, the income statement, and the cash-flow statement. The emphasis is on cash, the lifeblood of any business.The authors also advocate sensible "three bottom-line management," where the primary monitors and measures of business health are Net Profit, Operating Cash Flow, and Return on Assets. The explanations are easy to follow and convincing. Minimal technical terms are employed, and these are explained in everyday, conversational language. A glossary summarizes key concepts.Much of the book is written in the form of a novel: a story about a small company that sells computers to small office/home office (SOHO) businesses. This story provides most of the examples, providing a logical thread throughout. I think this is the easiest and most satisfying way to learn a lot of accounting, comfortably, in a book of just under 200 pages. It's a great one for reading on an airplane.