Salt Lake City Bookkeeping Blog

An important aspect of small business growth planning is understanding and managing your cost of goods sold. Whether your business sells products or services, it’s important to know “what is the cost of goods sold?” for each item or service you sell. This number provides the basic information you need to promote small business growth.

Trying to do your own bookkeeping can be daunting. You have a whole company to run and your area of expertise may simply not be in the financial or business fields. Fortunately, you have many options. So how can you find the right small-business bookkeeping services for your needs?

Determining operating business cash flow helps you distinguish how much money your business makes from customers and operating activities, such as selling products and services, from money made from financing or investing. Calculating your operating business cash flow helps you manage your money and ensures you have enough funds from customers to cover operating expenses and costs.

Cash flow refers to the money coming into a business. There are many ways money can enter a business and many ways for companies to add to their profits and revenues. However, understanding cash flow from operations is an important part of making decisions. If your business is creating a cash flow statement for an annual or quarterly report, cash flow from operations will play a key role.

Small-business mistakes can add up to big disasters. While large companies have the capital and budgets to fix big errors without folding, the same is just not true of smaller enterprises. If yours is a growing business, even relatively minor errors can be costly enough to cause you to close your doors.

There’s nothing as thrilling as starting a small business and watching your best ideas take flight. But just because you’re busy doesn’t mean you’re ready to expand — or even that you should expand. Here’s what you need to consider before you take the expansion plunge.

Long hours, high overhead, wasted ingredients and difficulty making profits are some of the barriers to success for restaurant owners. Yet, for those who love the business or who dream of having a place where everyone knows your name, there’s no other opportunity that comes close. For the best chance of success, do your research, partner with a mentor and hire experienced employees — and read up on the most common expenses that restaurant owners pay.

Why Small Businesses Need Social Media With people ignoring real life to focus on what’s happening online, and tales of social media-driven bullying abounding, it’s easy to write off platforms like Twitter and Facebook as unimportant for your business. Yet, the effectiveness of social media as a way to reach and connect with customers and influencers cannot be denied. It’s true that nasty comments and false rumors can cause problems, but with thoughtful posts and habitual attention, you can become known as a thought leader in your field.

The mom and pop shops in your hometown may not have as much name recognition as a major corporation like Apple or GE, but small businesses create more new jobs than any other kind of enterprise, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. The largest multinational corporations count on small businesses to funnel products and services their way. And over the past 20 years, small businesses created 64 percent of new jobs, accounting for 44 percent of the total private payroll in the U.S.

From a bad Yelp review to securing endorsements on LinkedIn, online reputation management plays a major role in small business growth. Here are some strategies you can use to win the internet by turning the online tide to your advantage.