What's the Most Important Financial Statement?

I get asked a lot: "Megan - what financial statements should I be looking at?"

Here it is:

Your projected cash flow.

That's it.

Not your income statement. Not your balance sheet.

Knowing where your cash balance will be 30/90/120 days from now.... that's really impactful.

And I don't mean a guestimate. I mean a deap-dive analysis of what's been going on, your habits, your trends, the effect of adjustments you're making... I mean get really dialed in and truthful about your cash.

And it feel so freakin' good.

Here are some added benefits of seeing your future cash balances:

You get peace of mind so you can sleep at night

You get massive clarity about what then next most important steps are to impact growth

It's really easy to spot and eliminate shiney objects

You get to the core of your mission a whole lot faster

Find out how much you can really afford to pay yourself without hurting the business

Income Statements? Balance Sheets? yeah yeah yeah... that stuff comes later. And really... is there anything on there that's surprising?

No.

If you had your next 6-12 months of cash laid out in front of you, where you could see where cash was going to get tight, where it was going to be abundant, and know WAY ahead of time where the trouble spots were... THAT'S how you build a strong and powerful business and escape the traps that come along with money panic.

Now if you're sitting there and thinking "I don't want to know. It's too scary" then you're not cut out for business.

Seriously.

Go get a job.

This isn't for the faint of heart. I'm not going to let you abdicate your responsibility as a business owner.

You owe it to yourself, to your family, to your employees, to your customers, to your vendors and to your community to get the business side of your business under control.

The wealth is in the numbers. The opportunity is in the numbers. The problems are exposed in the numbers.