It all about financial fundamentals.
Current situation
Decision-makers (DMs) of small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) don’t have basic financial fundamentals that are clearly defined, articulated or comprehensible.
Why is this?
With the ever-increasing complexity of accounting rules and reporting requirements, the time and costs of adhering to them have surpassed an emphasis on financial comprehension or financial fundamentals.
Complex, mandatory rules of GAAP/Tax reporting trumps common sense and the usefulness of financial reports for SMB DMs—who are, fundamentally, the “End User” and are paying to have their business’s financial statements comply with these complex and confusing rules.
The Trender Platform provides financial fundamentals by using a business’s existing reporting of internally generated monthly balance sheets and income statements. It is easily updated each month.
What are the financial fundamentals?
The Trender Platform shows the following 5 Elements® of Financial Fundamentals.
Operating earnings
Cash flow
Liquidity or financial health
Business value
Borrowing capacity
Of the 5 Elements, DMs usually have and comprehend only one of them: the P&L.
Decision Makers may be provided some of the other 5 Elements; either monthly or periodically, or when a capital event is being contemplated. When these are provided they are usually confusing or presented in a manner that provides only minimal insight.
With the Trender Platform, you have all 5 Elements on a monthly basis as well as their trends and drivers.
This adds significantly to your financial and business insight and sophistication.
Cash flow and liquidity – common sense reports
Two of these basic financial elements, that are part of the Trender Platform, are the cash flow and liquidity reports. These are shown in a proprietary, common sense manner.
A common-sense way to convey these is needed because the GAAP cash flow statement is confusing, and a comprehensible calculation of the dollar amount of liquidity does not exist. In addition to the calculation of the dollar amount of liquidity, the Trender Platform also includes the dollar amount of liquidity needed for a business of your size.
Are you better off with or without comprehending financial fundamentals?
The answer to this question is obvious, but it is asked in order to make a point.
Experience affirms that DMs make better-informed decisions when they grasp their financial fundamentals, their trends and their drivers. Not comprehending basic financial fundamentals puts DMs in a precarious position.
Insights of financial fundamentals from the Trender Platform does not make the decisions for DMs—it helps them help themselves. Nobody knows more about their businesses than the DMs.
How does it work?
Existing monthly balance sheets and income statements are input into the Trender Platform’s Excel-based system.
Most companies on the Trender Platform start with providing up to three years of reporting. This allows trends to be seen. When businesses have budgets, they are included.
Result
As an SMB DM, for the first time, you now have an accurate, comprehensive and comprehensible view of your company’s historical and current financial fundamentals as well as an “apples-to-apples, oranges-to-oranges” overview of the pathway of how the business arrived at its current financial situation which helps understand the past and plan for the future.
And, most importantly, SMB DM’s not only say, “This makes sense”, their creative juices are enhanced and/or revived as they start to see in black and white financial fundamentals that they’ve been fighting through the fog to get their arms around for a long time.