Full Description

The Small Business Survival Guide has improved the navigational skills of many small businesses, and it can do the same for you. It combines taxes, accounting, profitability analysis, cash management and risk management into a practical, easily understood presentation. Using the innovative concept of "No-Entry Accounting," you will learn how to effectively and economically prepare for taxes, anticipate financial needs and understand that gray area between you and your accountant.

--Avoid "cash traps" that cause businesses to fail
--Simplify your record-keeping
--Interpret your financial information accurately
--Plan for payroll and payroll tax filings
--Learn how to value your business

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: What Makes a Business Successful
Chapter 1: The Entrepreneurial Challenge
- Deciding Whether to Take the Plunge
- What Returns to Expect for Your Efforts
- Net Profit Study

Chapter 2: Preventing Business Failure
- Why Businesses Fail
- The Professions and Failure
- The Entrepreneurial Trojan Horse
- The Cycle of Demise

Chapter 3: Some Key Points Small Business Owners Need to Know
- Proprietorship Versus a Corporation
- The Balance Sheet
- Return on Investment
- Misunderstanding the Writeoff
- Skimming: It’s a Mirage
- Renting versus Buying
- New versus Used
- Interest: It Can Cost More Than You Think

Chapter 4: Priority One--Cash Management
- The Life Cycle of Cash Management Problems
- Where Have All the Cash Cows Gone?
- The Real Ratio: A Single Calculation That Can Guide to Profitability

Chapter 5: Priority Two--Profit
- Breakeven: The Life Cycle of a Small Business
- The Stair Steps to Success
- Managing the Business Through the Node of Profitability
- Profit and Loss Math

Chapter 6: Priority Three--Taxes
- Why You Should Master Your Business’sTax Data
- Forms You’ll Need to Prepare a Federal Tax Return
- Schedule C in Detail
- Depreciation

Part II: Getting a Handle on Your Money--No-Entry Accounting Manual
- Biting the Bullet
- Starting Up or Changing Over

Chapter 7: Why No-Entry Accounting?
- Rethinking the General Ledger
- One Shortcut
- No-Entry Accounting versus Conventional Accounting

Chapter 8: Basic Principles, Procedures and Results
- The Sort Box
- The Permanent Storage Box
- Key Uses of the No-Entry Accounting System
- Transactions Involved in the No-Entry Accounting Procedures
- Procedures for Statement Preparation with No-Entry Accounting
- Monthly Statement Preparation Procedure

Chapter 9: The No-Entry Alphabetical Transaction Index

Chapter 10: Using No-Entry Accounting--Joe's Cafe Case Study
- Preparing to Work the Case Study
- Case Study Solution and Discussion

Chapter 11: Valuing a Business--Ace Trucking Case Study
- Buying and Selling a Small Business
- Ace Trucking Company: Purchasing an Existing Business

Chapter 12: Changing Over to No-Entry Accounting
- Reinstating Cash Accounting for Day-to-Day Transactions
- The Importance of a Cutoff Date
- Changing From a Computerized General Ledger to No-Entry Accounting
- Starting No-Entry Accounting From Scratch

Part III: Cash Analysis--Making It All Work

Chapter 13: Sources of Cash
- Cash Analysis
- Cash Profit
- Checking and Savings Accounts
- Deferred Payment of Accounts Payable
- Accounts Receivable
- Inventory
- Employee Withholding
- Loans
- Notes Receivable
- Depreciation Expense
- The Sale of Assets
- Office in the Home
- Capital
- Post-Dated Checks

Chapter 14: Uses of Cash
- Net Cash Loss
- Net Increase in Inventory
- Draw
- Debt Retirement
- Accounts Receivable
- Cash Purchase of Assets

Chapter 15: Cash Forecasting
- Forecasting Using Your Income Statement
- What Your Profit and Loss Statement Never Told You

Part IV: Surviving Small Business

Chapter 16: Getting Along With Your Banker
- Five C’s of Credit

Chapter 17: Some Simple Systems to Start With
- General Ledger
- Payroll
- Accounts Receivable
- Accounts Payable

Chapter 18: What You Need When--A Guide to Monthly, Quarterly and Annual Accounting and Tax Cycles
- Monthly Accounting
- Monthly Reports
- Quarterly Reports
- Annual Reports
- Storing Your Records
- An Annual Financial Checkup for Your Business

Excerpt

from the Introduction

A primary focus of this book is to enhance your fiscal responsibility. Because small business owners lose billions of dollars each year, they are one of my primary targets. Most of them first decide to open a business and then discover the need to learn how to run it. These risk takers eagerly tie their health, wealth and well-being to a decision to make it on their own, ready or not! It is generally believed that if they wait until they are fully educated, fully financed and otherwise fully prepared, the opportunity will bypass them.

This book provides you with the opportunity to catch up fast. Many new concepts--The Real Ratio and the Cycle of Demise, for example--have been developed in Part I of the book to deal with fiscal ignorance in a way that does not require a college education. These new concepts, together with No-Entry Accounting, provide a breakthrough in small business education. This package has been described as, "The meat and potatoes of what it takes to run a business."

The simple basics that No-Entry Accounting provides in Part II are a necessary foundation for learning business concepts beyond accounting mechanics. The artifacts of conventional accounting, debits and credits, ledgers and journals, are abandoned. In their place is left a small business information system that is exceptionally easy to use, is perpetually audit ready and is faster than doing the work on a computer.

The greatest problem facing the small business owner is simple ignorance. There is nothing particularly difficult about learning to be fiscally responsible. The problem is that there are many small, simple principles which are an absolute necessity to running a fiscally sound entity. An ignorance regarding these simple principles leads directly to failure. While the principles are simple, they are not easy to come by, as they are tidbits derived from many academic disciplines. Parts III and IV of this book tie together these pieces to help you master cash management and achieve profitability.

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