QuickBooks Online

“To be successful in any business, you need to develop a feel for the numbers.  You need to get a sense of the relationships between them, see the connections, figure out which ones are especially critical and have to be monitored accordingly.  Numbers run businesses.” - Norm Brodsky, The Knack

These wise words come courtesy of seasoned entrepreneur, author, and Inc. Magazine contributor Norm Brodsky, in his bestselling book on entrepreneurial success The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up.

While many of us cringe at the thought of crunching numbers, it’s not breaking news that they provide valuable insight into the health and sustainability of a growing business.

QuickBooks Online has a feature that can help you discover trends and patterns in your financial data that can predict profitable growth.  It’s called Company Snapshot, and it’s located under the Reports Tab.

This page allows you to:

• Check the pulse of your business with graphs and charts
• Summarize income, expenses, receivables, and debt
• Compare your income and expenses to previous periods
• Find patterns and discrepancies to investigate further

Getting your Sherlock Holmes hat on

Every business (even if they don’t know it!) has a key number . What’s a key number?

Let’s do an example. Your revenue spikes every May, but you always have trouble paying your bills the next month.  You investigate further.  Your expenses increase drastically every May due to a particularly needy client you serve each spring.  This shrinks your gross margin, making you less profitable.

You play around with the numbers and discover the key number you should track is labor expenses per client. Now you can predict profitability and focus on clients that provide the best gross margin possible.

But maybe you already have your key number.  Feel free to share it with us!   What metrics do you use to gauge how well your business is doing?

What else would you like the Company Snapshot feature to tell you?  We’re here to help you peer through the fog of your financials; sharing your most important metric(s) will increase our ability to do so!

Bryan