Which is more important – P&L A/C or your Balance Sheet?

Profit & Loss A/C or Balance Sheet? Though both are separate financial reports, they are inter-linked and only collectively reflect a business’s health. Hence, it is important to understand their similarities and their difference.

A Balance Sheet bearing both assets and liabilities is a reflection of past performance as well as a measure of a business’s future capability. On the other hand, a profit and loss statement (P&L), showing earnings, expenses and net profit, throws light on the current state of affairs and indicates where a business is going in the future.
Read together, these two financial statements offer invaluable insights into a business’s performance and potential.

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Profit & loss A/C or Income Statement
• It provides information on how a business performed over its accounting period (normally, a financial year).
• It provides detailed view of all income and expenditure of that accounting period, such that comparisons can be made with past performance or budgeted expectations

Balance Sheet
• It shows the extent of your business’s ownership of assets, liability and equity at a given point in time.
• It shows how much cash your business has on hand and also identifies the most valuable assets of the company.
• It helps you to keep a constant eye on the quantum of your debts, and helps you to decide when and how to service them
• Your Balance Sheet will be referred to by all your stakeholders (banks, financiers) in order to gauge your business’s strength and potential
There are several notional elements in a Profit & Loss a/c and the big factor which is not taken into account is movements in working capital. Anyone who has run a business knows that it is one thing to sell an item or a service at a price that produces a profit, but unless customers pay up on time that profit is not secure and is, at worst, an illusion. This simple fact needs to be borne in mind when you look at your P&L a/c. It is, therefore, imperative that you read your Balance Sheet along with the P&L a/c. If you do this, you will know how soon your customers will pay you and therefore give you the power to assess your cash inflows and outflows.

Finally, from an operations point of view, P&L is more important, but from a strategy point of view, Balance Sheet is more valuable. A review of the P&L alone may give the appearance that the company is performing well, while a standalone review of the Balance Sheet can highlight the fact that the company may be in financial trouble.

If you look at one, without reviewing the other, you may get an incorrect financial snapshot. Only by reviewing both the P&L and the Balance Sheet can you truly assess the financial performance and potential of your business.

Update to Sales Tax (VAT/CST)

We’re excited to inform you that QuickBooks India edition will have enhanced Sales Tax (VAT/CST) workflow from new financial year FY2015-16 (i.e. April 1st, 2015).

Key Enhancements include:
• Separation of Tax & Retail Invoice
• Central Sales Tax (CST) support such as invoice against C-Form, CST Reg No. tracking, CST Tax & Compliance
• Enhanced Sales Tax (VAT/CST) workflow which makes it easier to use QuickBooks for tax and compliance of VAT/CST
• Tracking and reporting of Unregistered Dealer Purchase
• Statutory VAT/CST reports to help with sales tax filing
o Sales Summary / Detail (bill wise)
o Purchase Summary / Detail
o URD Purchase
o CST Missing Declaration
o Tax Preparation Report / Excel Output

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1. Chart of Accounts
Let’s start with the basics….
For VAT/CST, Output and Input tax account (Output tax accounts will include tax collected during sales and Input tax accounts will include tax paid during purchase) for each rate is added. E.g. for VAT 4%, Output VAT 4%, Input VAT 4% is added. For CST, only Output CST for each rate will be added.
VAT & CST Payable account is also included which will be updated during the Tax adjustment for a period.


Payable accounts will be typically cleared after the Tax payment for a particular period. In addition, users can use the Deferred VAT Input Credit account to defer the un-utilized credit from a period. This will show up as Excess Input credit forward in the VAT Computation report.

2. Sales
As mentioned in Chart of Accounts section, all sales tax (VAT/CST) collected during sales will be added to Output VAT or CST in the corresponding tax rate.

What are the key invoice structures your Business should consider?
Tax vs. Retail Invoice
QuickBooks now supports separation of Tax and Retail invoice for businesses that need it. First, turn on the feature in Company Settings > Sales > Classification of Tax and Retail Invoices.


Once the feature is on, every time an invoice is created, QuickBooks will classify the invoice as Tax invoice or Retail invoice based on the customer registration (i.e. Tax Reg. No.).
If the Tax Reg. No. for the customer is present, it will be considered Tax Invoice, otherwise it will be Retail invoice. The user can override this auto classification, if needed.




Users (typically auditors) can also run report (“invoice list”) to see a list of tax and retail invoices.

CST Invoices:
If your business includes sales out of state, you can add your customer CST Registration No. under Tax info. Once you setup your customer, when you create an invoice, CST related fields such as CST Form Type, Form No. will appear in the invoice. If you have setup tax (See Tax Center), CST Tax rates will appear in the Tax drop down under the items.


CST Form No. can be entered later by running ‘CST Sales with Form No.’ report under the CST Tax agency.

3. Purchase
As mentioned in Chart of Accounts section, all sales tax (VAT/CST) paid during purchases will be added to Input VAT or CST in the corresponding tax rate.

Tracking of Unregistered Dealer (URD) purchase
All purchases (bills) entered for suppliers who are not registered will be considered as an Unregistered Dealer (URD) purchase. Registration is determined by the entry of the Supplier Tax Registration Number and Effective date.


All bills created for suppliers with Tax Registration Number on or after the effective date is considered a registered purchase and everything else is considered unregistered purchase. All URD Purchases are listed in the form of report under the VAT Tax agency.

4. Tax Center
For QuickBooks companies which has already turned on tax (i.e. Setup tax), CST tax agency will be added with a default tax rate of 2% besides existing VAT and Service Tax. Users can add additional tax codes and rates as required for their business.
For QuickBooks companies that are new or not yet setup tax, CST tax agency will be included along with VAT and Service Tax when tax is setup.

Sales Tax Workflow


For both VAT & CST, the Tax workflow has been enhanced to include:
i. Tax Computation
This will show the Output (Sales), Input (Purchase) tax for the current payment period along with computed Tax Payable for both VAT, CST

ii. Tax Adjustment
This will show the common adjustment for VAT/CST in the form of a journal entry. Consider this entry as a starting point populated for your convenience and make the necessary adjustment as needed to suit your business.

As mentioned on QuickBooks, please consult your Chartered Accountant / Tax Professional before saving the changes. The purpose of the Tax adjustment is to compute the correct Tax payable for the current payment period.

iii. Record Payment
Record payment is used to track your Tax payment in QuickBooks. You can use Record payment to track the payment for the current payment period or previous (missed) periods. After the Tax Payment, the payable account will typically be reset or cleared (i.e. zero balance).

iv. Reports
QuickBooks provides all the Sales Tax reports for both VAT / CST under reports drop down. This is mainly useful for reference, internal / external Audit, Tax preparation and filing. We discussed some of the reports such as URD Purchase, CST Sales with Form numbers in the above sections.
The Tax Prep Report is useful for extracting all the necessary data from QuickBooks transactions for Sales Tax filing purpose. Here is a screen shot of the Tax Prep Report exported to excel.

Are Angel Investors Right for Your Startup?

Sourcing for funds is part of good financial management in a startup. Angel investors are just one way your business can obtain funding for business growth, but how do you know if they are the right option for you?

In 2014-15, the top five angel groups in India invested Rs 70.3 crore in startups and small to medium businesses (SMBs). This was an 81% increase from Rs 38.8 crore in 2013-14.

An angel investor is an affluent individual or group who invests capital in a company at an early stage, much earlier than a venture capitalist (VC), typically in return for equity. Angels can be individuals like Rajan Anandan, Sachin Bansal or part of a group like India Angel Network.

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Angel investing has helped many Indian businesses, like e-commerce company Myntra and taxi service OlaCabs, take off. Consider these following points before you answer the question, ‘are angel investors right for my start-up?’

What Makes an Angel Investor Attractive?

•        Quick capital: In comparison to banks and VCs, it is relatively easy to get capital investments from angel investors and at a stage in the company’s growth cycle when traditional investors find it too risky to invest.
•        Mentorship: An experienced angel investor will and should spend time with you to guide you on how to run the business, build a solid reputation, create a business strategy, recruit the right people and proceed to the next stage of growth. The mentorship provided by a good angel can often prove to be extremely valuable.
•        Networks: It has been said that business is all about who you know. A well-connected angel investor who knows other investors can increase your credibility and enhance your ability to raise capital from other sources in the future.

The Other Side of Angels

•        Lack of experience: Sometimes, angels have money to invest, but not necessarily the business know-how to guide your company along the right path. If they’re not sure of what they’re doing, it could pose serious problems for your business.
•        Giving up equity: While this means you don’t have to pay the money back, it does mean that you are signing away some level of control and a portion of all future earnings.

So instead of asking a broad question, like ‘are angel investors right for your business?’, begin by asking a more focused question – ‘is this (or that) angel investor right for your start-up?’

What to Expect from Angel Investors

First and foremost, a potential investor will want to see the level of your passion and commitment. Then comes a clear pitch that articulates your market research, business plan, valuation and possibly a prototype of your product or service. Besides putting your best foot forward in your pitch, you should also expect a few things from angel investors.

•        Possible delays: Because angels are investing their own money in your business and not a corporation’s, expect delays from them to take time to do due diligence and discuss terms.
•        Questions: No matter how sure you are of your venture, be prepared to answer questions about everything from culture to leadership style to financial management. A quick and well-researched response will boost the confidence of your investor.
•        Rejection: Like any group of investors, angels probably get hundreds of proposals a day. If you face rejection at first, try to understand the reason behind it and revise your proposal for the next pitch.

All things considered, angel investors are a great way to raise capital for your business in its early stages. Think about all the upsides and downsides of obtaining funding this way and your business could be on its way to much bigger things to come. 

4 reasons investors may hesitate to inject capital in your SMB

Capital is a key ingredient for starting or growing a business but raising money can be challenging, as any entrepreneur knows.

With fierce competition in the startup space in India, enterprises are born daily and venture capitalists sit through hundreds of pitches each week. Here are four common reasons that could make investors hesitate with injecting funds into your small business, and how you can resolve these issues to improve your chances of raising capital.

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One – You’re delivering a less than perfect pitch

Your pitch is often the first impression investors make of your venture and delivering a bad one can mean missing out on a callback. Why do pitches go wrong? Often times it’s a result of the simplest mistakes, such as using too much technical jargon, a lack of crucial details, nervousness when presenting, or just being uninteresting in general.

Investors, or venture capitalists (VCs) have to sit through multiple presentations; so being concise and able to answer any questions thrown at you is key. Besides capturing your listeners by using narrative and emotion, focus on the benefits of your company and highlight why you are passionate about the problems you are aiming to solve. Don’t be afraid to ask your audience questions in turn, it will give you the chance to flesh out technical details that they may be unsure of and create a strong impression about your level of knowledge and experience. Lastly, do some research on the parties you’re talking to so you have some background knowledge on which to build rapport.

Two – You’re not showing business traction

VCs are less likely to fund unproven businesses if they can’t see that they’ll be getting a reasonable return on investment. Demonstrate how you are generating customer interest, which could mean showing evidence of pre-orders or sales. If you’re not up to this stage, explain how you plan to sell your product by outlining your distribution, marketing and sales strategies. This reassures investors as to how you expect revenue to come in.

Three – You’re not analyzing risks

Investors want to hear that you’ve considered the risks to your business and are taking precautions to mitigate them. Forgetting this step could give the impression that their potential investment won’t be in safe hands. Some risks to analyze include market, technological, legal and operational concerns. When you identify potential issues, plan how you will address them and make sure you present the information to investors in a way that highlights the steps you’re taking to guard against risk of failure.

Four – You’re ignoring your competition

Almost every business has competitors and not acknowledging them can make it look like you don’t know your market. The way to identify competitors (if they’re not obvious) is by looking at the needs your product fills and considering substitute products that address them.

When investors ask about competitors, tell them how your product is different, considering things like pricing and technology. This will demonstrate that the competition isn’t a threat to you and why your venture has all-important advantages.

Knowing what turns investors off can help you turn your business into an attractive investment proposition, whether it’s by building traction, getting to grips with risks or honing your pitch. If you have experienced any knock-backs, don’t be disheartened. Instead, use these to your advantage and find out why someone didn’t invest. The sooner you know, the sooner you can fix the problem. 

Skills You Need To Be Your Startup’s CEO

Being the CEO of a startup is one of the most challenging roles out there. Your job is to build a product customers love, recruit a team, find funding from customers, partners or investors and guide the overall prioritization of work. Having said that, while some people are efficient in leading a startup and enjoy doing it, they might not be as good at leading a mid-level enterprise and vice versa. It boils down to you, to decide if your will be able to and enjoy leading your startup, as a CEO.

Here are a few key skills that are an essential for you to effectively lead your startup. We hope that this list will help you decide if you should be the CEO of your startup.

Very good communication skills: As the CEO of a startup, it is essential to be able to communicate a vision to your employees as well as your investors. A CEO should inspire confidence in the employees and belief in the investors by the way he speaks.

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Keeping costs low:  As a startup CEO, your foremost priority is to be able to come up with creative ways to cut your costs. In order to procure key services like accounting or legal, you can offer equity stake in your company rather than paying for them. Wherever possible, it is necessary to defer payments, until such time when your startup generates enough revenue to consistently pay up.

A thorough understanding of the product/ service: It is essential for you as the CEO of a startup company to be able to understand the needs of a customer. As a CEO of your start up, you should also be able to solve these needs and design products accordingly.

Capable of generating funds: Being able to procure or generate funds for your company is another very important skill that a CEO of a startup should have. Any business, at least in its primary phase requires at least a substantial amount of funding to run their operations. Funding is important but as a CEO, you should also be able to maintain a pressure to procure money for the product/ services from your customers.

Able to set goals for employees and avoid micromanagement: A lot of inexperienced CEOs make this mistake of being a micro-manager and trying to manage even the smallest aspect of their startup. It is best to hire individuals who can do their job much better than you could do their job and to set goals with them and hold them accountable to their goals—but not to tell them how to do their job.

Having a professional to take up the role of a CEO is a good idea if your sets of skills don’t match up to the skills required at various stages of growth, of an organization. To reiterate, it totally depends on who you are and what you want to do. Skills can be learned but at times it is a good idea to be practical, after all, it’s your brainchild that is at stake.

Getting to Know Your Investors Better

Choosing an investor is one of the most important decisions you’ll make, when setting up your business venture. An investor who believes in you and your idea and is simultaneously capable of supporting it monetarily is a boon to any startup.
These are a few points that you need to keep in mind in order to choose the right investor for your start up.

How old is your investor?
Yes age does matter. If you have an older investor who is on the verge of retiring you will not have financial support for a long period of time. Older investors are looking for savings and profits so they will be less open to any kind of risk that you might want to take. An investor in his or her thirties to fifties is more inclined to take a higher level of investment risk and this is what you should capitalize on.

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When did you investor start investing?
You investor is also, in some way your mentor and hence you must bank on their experience. An experienced investor will always warn you of impending financial disasters which in turn will allow you to plan ahead and mitigate the risks to avoid the same.

How much can your investor afford to lose?
Investors will always weigh their potential risk versus their potential reward. If your investor is a high-profile one, they will be willing to take risks and pump in more money in the event of an initial failure because it is not going to affect their standard of living. On the contrary, if your investor doesn’t have much to invest – they will be less likely to take risks increasing the chances of failure for your startup. With a higher affordable percentage (or reservation price), one could potentially consider more risky investments.

Does your investor have an extrovert personality?
According to experts in psychology, extroverts are more likely to take risks than introverts. Extroverts are relatively more comfortable with their surroundings which make them more open to risks.  The idea of failure doesn’t scare an extrovert as much as it does an introvert.

How often does your investor regret bad choices?
This is a very personal question to ask and you probably cannot ask this question but if your investor has a big name, you can probably find news reports on how they take failures. If your investor typically regrets “bad choices” for a long time, high risk investments are not their cup of tea.
At the end of the day, your choice of an investor depends on your requirement and you need to choose wisely after proper research. Always choose an investor who is willing to invest in your idea even if there is substantial amount of risk involved. It is very important that – while sending in applications for investment choose investors based on what you need. Simply sending in your plan to all available investors is never a good idea. If you want your business to expand you need good investors.

Working With Consultants

Hiring a consultant can improve your business to a great extent. Consulting is one of easiest professions to join – almost anyone can set up a business at minimal cost and use the job title “consultant” to sell their services and herein lies the problem of hiring a consultant.

Ideal consultants are extremely skilled and experienced people and this makes it a little challenging to work with them. Here are a points to keep in mind in order to effectively work with consultants:

Check your need for a consultant: Before you recruit a consultant, you need to first check your need for one. If your client is simply in the need for resource and not consultancy, then it is a better idea to hire someone because consultants tend to be very expensive. If someone within the company is capable enough to take up the new role, it is a good idea to go on with this option.

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Plan Meticulously: It is extremely important that you plan each and every aspect of your consultancy project. A successful consultancy project is one that is meticulously planned and the outcomes are assessed even before hiring a consultant. It is essential that you are able to clearly define the brief and set your expectations right from the start.

The cost: Always make it a point to be clear about the amount of money that your hired consultant will charge and how much are they going to deliver for the amount they charge. This is important to assess the ROI that you are getting out of investing on a particular consultant.

Does your consultant fit in: Since consultants are highly skilled and experienced people they might not be able to fit-in with the culture in your office. That being said, a good consultant will be able to communicate well with your business managers as well as your employees seamlessly. Before making a hiring decision ensure that you consult your employees and managers. For a consultant to work effectively – they must be able to work together, with other employees.

Appoint a project manager: For a consultancy project to be successful, it needs to be managed well. Ensure that you appoint an excellent project manager who will be responsible for the consultant and will work with him/ her to ensure the project stays on track.

Consultancy is one of the most niche and professional services that individuals provide. Your business will benefit, to a great extent on employing a consultant but the real question is the need for one. That being said, you will have to spend a substantial amount of your resources in order to employ a consultant, which, as you are starting up might not be a great idea, can as your business grows become a profitable endeavour for your business to undertake.

Problem Solving for Beginners

All startups have their unique set of problems but it is more important to identify them and create answers to problems by reducing their recurrence from previous years. Business problems entail achieving objectives by preventing a situation from happening or recurring. Small businesses are required to set up goals and ways to solve these problems to understand what can be achieved and the path that the business would like to follow. There are a few barriers that come in the way of meeting our goals and these barriers can be accounted for as problems. Problem solving takes shape to overcome these barriers that prevent the instantaneous achievement of goals. Here are a few steps to solve problems:

Identify the problem:
Determine, isolate and recognize the problem, understand the nature of the problem and classify the problem. This will help you locate and separate the issue and provide problem solving solutions. Here you can provide answers to problems by detecting and recognizing the problem; learning the nature of the problem; defining the problem.

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Problem Structuring:
Small businesses must review their internal and external problems. This includes a period of observation, inspection, fact-finding and developing a clear picture of the problem. Startups need to find out what exactly is the problem and build on the larger picture to assess the severity of the problem.

Developing possible solutions:
Your business will answer these problems by developing a plan of action. This involves a creation of a strategic course of action that helps to evaluate and build on solutions that you make to eradicate the problem. Here is an attempt to evaluate the problem is made.

Decision Making:
Here your business will carefully understand and solve problems based on the analysis of various courses of action. Once the best solution is selected, it is implemented in a manner that would be beneficial to the organization. It is the role of heads of startups to take a firm decision and the right course of action.

Implementation:
A small business must understand that in order to successful execute the decision, they should implement it. Implementation includes accepting and carrying out the selected course of action.

Reviewing Feedback:
Once your business has implemented your answer to the problem and look for ways to solve it, and include relevant feedback based on the outcome of the selected solution.
As a beginner, learn to identify the problem and construct ways to ensure a favourable outcome. This will encourage you to review feedback and make necessary changes to your plan. Look out for warning signs and put a system into place to ensure that you have a problem solving mechanism in place.

How to Create your Own Business Plan

A business plan is vital to any form of business that you might want to start up. It clearly defines the goals that you set for the business and also streamlines the methods for achieving them. Every business needs one and its best to start writing one as early as possible.

 

The business plan can and should include the following points –
•    Description
•    Goals
•    Marketing Plan
•    Financial Plan
•    Management Plan

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The Description will allow you to have a clear idea of what you are aiming for. It also gives others who might want to invest in your business or who want to be a part of it a clear idea about your business. It helps to build trust with all those that you might interact with.

Goals are important in all aspects of a business otherwise you would not know if you are creating a profit or not. Set goals for the short term and also for the long term. It is very good practice to go over your goals and make changes to them when deemed necessary to make sure that your business is not stagnating.

Marketing is a very important part of a business. Without the force of marketing even the best product would find it hard to get off the ground. You will have to allocate a decent amount of time and financial commitment to marketing your products and ideas to the world so as to make a profit. Make sure you put a lot of thought into who you should market your product to and the most effective way to reach that audience.

Before you start a business make sure that you are able to provide for the growth of the business financially. You will have to allocate money for start-up costs (amount required to get up and running) and also operating costs (money required to keep the business running.) Start calculating what these costs might be and if you have the finances required to get everything started and running. The financial plan will help you get your business started and running till you start seeing some cash inflow from your new business.

Your management plan along with your other plans will set the foundation for your company to grow. Managing your own company will require lots of dedication and persistent effort from you to get things done. You will have to look at yourself and assess what skills and qualities you have and decide on whom to hire for the skills that you might be lacking in. Employees are very integral to any business and so is the way in which you treat them. Be open to ideas and educate your team about what is happening in your business so that they feel they belong.

These are just a few tips about what can go into a business plan. Make sure that you spend time on creating one for your business so you know exactly where you are headed and how you will go about it.