Are you a whiz at calculating financial information? Not the easy
personal stuff, like figuring out your monthly mortgage based on
a fixed interest rate for x number of years, or how much money
you have available each month after all your bills are paid. (You
can probably use your fingers to figure that one out!)
But the hard stuff, you know, the things you need to know when
youre running a small business. Things like company and stock
valuation, loan consolidation, cost of capital or even the
average cost of capital, variable cash flow, operation value with
different rates, those types of things?
Youve probably heard of these terms but if youre like most
small business owners, you wouldnt know how to calculate these
results if your business depended on it. Well, guess what? Your
business does depend on it!
Before your business idea even gets out of your head and onto
paper, you need to be prepared to figure these types of numbers
out. If youre planning to do a business plan, which, by the way,
is a very good idea, you will need to include an entire section
of the business plan devoted entirely to finances. You need to
know the break-even point; the break-even point determined using
various scenarios, start-up valuation, ROI-ROE, the capacity for
growth and more.
And if you ever need to take out a loan for your business, youll
hear terms like payment schedule, even capital amortization,
discount notes, rate and payment objectives, refinancing and
prepayments. Is your head swimming yet?
Youve also probably got an investment or two that youre trying
to keep better track of. Stocks, bonds, real estate theyve
each got their own language and their own ways of calculating
profit or loss. Do you know how much volatility is involved and
the amount of yield of your portfolio? Perhaps at this point you
dont even really care!
Then when you go home after a hard days work, you spouse might
even want to talk about if and when youll be able to buy a new
car, or save for the childrens college, or plan for retirement.
Sure, you can hire financial analysts to figure out all these
numbers for you and handle this type of work as it occurs, but it
probably wont be cheap. And if youve got your business on a
budget, hiring someone who specializes in numbers certainly will
be out of the question.
You can begin surfing the Internet where youll probably find
instructions for properly calculating each of these and other
types of figures. You can keep your fingers crossed and hope that
you followed the instructions precisely and that the numbers you
come up with are the numbers you and others want to see and can
rely on.
Or, if you already own a copy of Microsoft Excel, you can
purchase a powerful add-on product called Financial Advisor for
Excel. This product contains formulas for calculating 73
different types of financial calculations; the types youll need
to run your small business and your growing family.
Financial Advisor for Microsoft Excel is really easy to use, too.
For most of the calculations, all you need to do is plug in the
numbers. The software then handles all of the calculations and
presents them neatly in graphs and tables. And it does all this
far more quickly than any professional you will hire and who you
will pay by the hour.
Financial Advisor for Microsoft Excel truly does make good
financial sense. So do yourself a favor and get yourself a copy
today.
Copyright 2004 Cavyl Stewart. Get the most out of the software you use everyday. Check out the add-in software directory for more information on Financial Advisor and other great time saving Excel add-in tools, visit:
http://www.find-small-business-software.com/excel-addins.html -
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