Basic Business Resources

Business planning is an important factor when you are launching your small business startup or online business, and you need to make sure you have documented your ideas thoroughly and objectively for each area. From financial projections to summaries and overviews, an effective business plan will help you and potential investors determine how valuable the business idea truly is. Most people make the mistake of thinking they don’t need a business plan for an online business or startup; they think they can just launch first, and then put the pieces together as they move ahead. However, this can be a costly strategy and puts you at risk for some big mistakes. Business planning will help you organize your goals and keep you on track towards success. Here are some basic do’s and don’ts for business planning:

Do write up the business plan summaries before filling out each area. The summary can serve as a basic guide, and can always be changed later if needed. You’ll need to write up the general idea of what the section is about so you have a simple outline before getting into the details.

Don’t analyze trends too early. While it’s a good idea to do some market research and learn about your customers, determining market potential too early on can lead to poor decisions. Effective business planning requires that you find only the information that supports your ideas at this present moment, and then using solid financial projections for forecasting at a later date.

Do outline a marketing budget and plan. Your marketing plan doesn’t have to be complex to be effective, and there are many ways you can work on promoting your business and developing a strong customer base. Make a list of at least 5-8 marketing objectives and strategies so that you can coordinate your marketing plan immediately from the startup of your business.

Don’t share your business planning strategy or ideas with too many people. You want to make sure that your plans and information remain confidential until you are prepared to launch. Sharing your ideas with too many people can easily make you lose out on a great business opportunity.

Do include sales strategies and marketing tools you want to use. This will help you narrow down which approaches might be most effective for your business as you start out, and you can always build upon them as the business grows. Having these ideas in writing will help you keep track of your objectives with ease.

Don’t include your background research or additional ideas within the final plan. Business planning does require some strategic reporting, and you don’t have to ‘publish’ all of your research in the final plans. Take the time to weed out what is most important for you as you get going, and organize the plan as if you were going to be presenting it to a board for review. This will help you filter out what is necessary for the beginning phases of your small business startup, and what can wait for additional review at a later date.

Effective business planning takes time, patience, and strong research and organization skills but the effort is well worth it. Following some business planning basics is all you need to get started, and you can work on building up your plan with ease as the business grows.

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Business planning is an adventure?

I doubt that many people would describe it that way.
Creating a business plan is not a favorite for many entrepreneurs. Business plans have gotten the reputation of being complicated, boring, and useless.

Part of the reason for this is probably because of the requirement to have a business plan when applying for a loan.
In that case, the plan is written more for the lending institution than it is for the business owner. Most likely, once the loan is approved, the business plan document is soon forgotten.
Working on a business plan seems to bring out procrastination and frustration. It is easy to put off a project that seems as though it will take a big chunk of time and energy. There may also be hesitation to get into planning due to possible differences in opinion in your company as to what the priorities should be.
So, how can we make this business planning into an adventure?
Who doesn’t like the idea of planning an adventure trip?
I was thinking about the basics of a business plan and how those basic steps apply to planning such a journey. There really are a lot of parallels.
As I planned my solo trip to New Zealand to go backpacking with seven women, there were a lot of challenges for me and I felt I needed a plan.
Why create a plan? Clarifying your thinking is the most important reason for having a plan written down. Most everyone planning a trip talks about what they are going to do and how they feel about it. Taking it a step farther and writing it down solidifies it.
As I wrote down my structured plan, I could see clearly what was to be done and felt more confident about making the journey.
I used the five main parts of a business plan:
1. Vision

2. Mission

3. Objectives

4. Strategies

5. Plans
TRIP TO NEW ZEALAND
My Vision: Suzanne sees herself as a strong, independent woman traveling successfully on an international adventure.
My Mission: Suzanne is to go to New Zealand, connect with seven other women she has never met, hike the Banks Peninsula Track, and get back home safely.
Objectives:
1. Arrange air and ground travel.

2. Get prepared physically.

3. Be well equipped for the hike.
Strategies:
1. Find convenient and most economical travel.

2. Concentrate on good nutrition, exercise, and hiking with a pack.

3. Find good quality equipment that is comfortable
Plans:
Travel Arrangements
1. Check air rates online and with travel agent

2. Make decision and purchase tickets
Equipment:
1. Check equipment at REI and the outdoor store and online.

2. Make decision on price and comfort.
Conditioning:
1. Hike around the lake in hiking boots on flat ground with weighted backpack.

2. Hike mountain without backpack.

3. Hike mountain with weighted backpack.
Now, do those steps to a business plan seem so daunting when you think of them in terms of an adventure trip?
Most every business owner has a plan that is shared often in conversation. You’ll hear them talk about their vision, objective, strategies and plans.
Getting that plan down in writing makes it easier for others to know and understand their vision and how they plan to get there.
If you’re finding it difficult to get your plan together, find a planning partner. Get another business owner to commit to doing his or her plan at the same time. Call each other to keep yourselves on track. Another source of support would be a business coach who could strategize with you as you go through the steps of the plan.
Is business planning starting to sound more like an adventure to you?
Jump into the plan! It’s amazing just how satisfying it is to have a plan in place and go with it.

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If you are a business owner or an individual who deals with the keeping of financial record, it is important that you follow the basic principles of accounting. This is very important since without these basic principles, your business will be a failure. These principles are called GAAP which is the acronym of the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. However, you should also consider the appropriate guide lines for accounting to win the trust of the companies.

Basically, there are two different bases on which the most of the business accounts are developed – the accrual basis and the cash basis. In the accrual basis procedure, the transaction is tracked according to the credit owed to the company and owed by the company. This is done regardless of the cash payment. On the other hand, the cash basis accounting puts particular importance on the cash transaction such as the transfer of cash. Here, the expenses are recorded only after the actual payment is made.

In most of the cases, the small companies follow accounting on the cash basis. This is largely because the number of transactions is limited here and they can be recorded easily. At the same time, the owners of the small business can evade the tax by manipulating their revenues by recording the cash as received in the next financial year. However, the large companies do not have this facility since the amount of transaction is large. Also, they have the fear of losing their reputation in the public and shareholders. This is why the large companies prefer the accrual method.

However, regardless of the method of accounting taken up by a company, it is absolutely important that the company has an accounting information system in hand. However, it may seem difficult for the small companies to set up such a system. But, once you invest here, it is sure to provide you with more accuracy and functionality.

Basically, the work of the accountant is to record and analyze the financial transactions of the company. To that end, he performs the following task. First of all, he jots down all the transactions in a particular book. Then, these transactions are analyzed and published in the ledger. Once this is done, the transactions are summarized and published as financial statement.

There are two different types of financial statements – the balance sheet and the profit and loss account. The former is the list of the liabilities and assets owned by the company at that particular period of time. On the other hand, the profit and loss account deals with all the expenditure and profits made by the company at the given period. The financial statements are extremely important for the employees and owners of the company. Third parties like the government, and public too, have a lot of interest in them.

The accountant is important since he is the person who delivers all the information. At the same time, an experienced accountant will give you vital advices when it comes to purchasing an existing business.

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