This class was the second day of financing. The emphasis was on balance sheets, double entry and how to charge for your product or service.

The most interesting part was actually trying to cost your product or service. The things that you need to factor in when calculating your workable hours are: holidays, travel, sick leave, meetings etc. These things coupled with the costs of labour, rent, insurance, rates, tax and other fees leaves you thinking that you need to charge as much as the market can bare without loosing out to the competition, just to break even is a fine balance to say the least.

There were some other interesting observations from the examples that we did. In the current climate it is really worth investigating if you should rent or buy the equipment that you need for your business.

It is obvious from a business perspective to function well involves having as much cash as possible…. this is very cliche but “Cash is King”, it is better to have a much longer credit time with any of your debtors whilst getting the money owed to you in as soon as you can, your bank balance will always look healthy, not to mention that you will have money should you need it.

Seems simple from the outset, in reality is it not that straightforward.