The Financial Management System for Small Businesses
Brick-Fish Multipurpose Cooperative supports to develop the business management capacities of its members. As members frequently seek financial support from the cooperative in the form of loans and grants, the cooperative provides custom financial management tools and train members on their use, ensuring their businesses are effectively managed and profitable as conditionality for access business finance.
Overview
Manual Accounting System
Brick-Fish Cooperative uses manual accounting system for most member-businesses. Our manual book-keeping can be painstaking, but it saves businesses the cost of hardware, software and access subscriptions for digital options. Businesses that afford digital options may tick with it.
Why Financial Records Matter
Managing business finances can often be confusing to unskilled business starters. Many business owners worry if every revenue has been accounted for or whether cash flow covers expenses. Keeping financial records is an important task to address these worries, but there's usually a challenge finding simple tools for business owners to turn to for structure and clarity.
Key Statistics:
- Roughly 82% of small businesses struggle with accounting challenges, threatening growth and survival
- Proactive manual spreadsheet management is proven to bring structure and clarity to small businesses
Our Custom Financial Management Tools
Four essential spreadsheets have been customised for members-businesses to master:
- Daily Point of Sales Listing
- Daily Income and Expense Tracker
- Monthly Profit & Loss Account
- Inventory Management Spreadsheet
These provide clear answers to our members' financial management questions and serve as basic springboard for development of financial accounting capacity while growing their business.
The Four Custom Financial Books
Book 1: The Daily Point of Sales Listing
This is a manual booklet that compiles all sales at sales points. Each sales point maintains one book. It is the first entry in the entire accounting system. It helps track sales, summarize total sales by categories of goods and provides information that is inputted in Book 2- the Daily income and expenditure tracker.
Key Features:
- Monitors compliance at sales points
- Obtained from the cooperative at a cost
- Cooperative representatives ensure compliant record keeping
- Training provided to sales points
- Maintains legibility for businesses to access loans from the cooperative
Note: The Daily Point of Sales Listing is a tool for the sales attendant.
How to Get It: Visit the Office to purchase a copy, request a copy by email to contact.brickfishcooperative@gmail.com or download a copy.
Book 2: The Daily Income and Expenditure Tracker
This is a manual booklet that compiles all income and expenditure for the month. The Income and Expense Tracker is a cornerstone of a financial system, giving business owners a clear view of their daily cash flow. It tracks every amount coming in and going out, helping owners understand exactly where the money is coming from and going.
An effective tracker categorizes revenue sources, expenses, and variable costs, making it easier to identify spending patterns, cut unnecessary costs, and prevent cash leakages. Brickfish Cooperative offers custom simple yet powerful Income and Expense Template that aligns with the national accounting standards, to help member-businesses get started.
Key Details:
- One of the most important tools when determining spreadsheets to keep
- Used by upper-level manager with authority to control expenses
- Sources: Point of sales listing + manager's expenditure listing
- Includes monthly summary (unlike daily point of sales with daily summary)
How to Get It: Visit the Office to purchase a copy, request a copy by email to contact.brickfishcooperative@gmail.com or download a copy.
Book 3: The Profit and Loss Statement
The Profit and Loss (P&L) statement is a business financial report card. It summarizes performance over a specific period, detailing revenue, expenses, and net profit. It is needed by the cooperative or other investors to consider putting money into your business. It also provides insight for business owners to refine strategy. The P&L statement highlights both successes and areas that need improvement.
Member-businesses may adopt monthly, quarterly, or annual reporting but our custom tool is the quarterly approach, to allow sufficient data for a clearer view of the business bottom line. The quarterly profit and loss statement is a must for any business that wish to get loans from our cooperative.
Components of Our Custom P&L Report
- Revenue: Signifies the turnover or the net sales during an accounting period. Includes earnings from the primary activity, non-operating revenue and gains on long-term business assets' sales.
- Cost of Goods Sold: Signifies the cost of services and products.
- Gross Profit: Also called gross margin or gross income, represents the net revenue minus the sales cost.
- Operating Expenses: Sales, general and administrative expenses linked to running a business including utilities, payroll, rental, depreciation, etc.
- Operating Income: Referred to as EBITDA. Calculated by deducting operating expenses from gross profit.
- Net Profit: The total amount earned after subtracting expenditure. Calculated as: (Gains + Revenue) – (Losses + Expenses).
Our Method: The Single-Step Approach
We write the Profit and Loss Statement using the Single-Step Method, helping to comprehend net income by deducting expenditure and losses from gains and revenues. We make use of:
- • Single subtotal for all revenue-oriented items
- • Single subtotal for all expenditure-oriented items
- • Net loss or gain positioned at the end of the report
Our expert staff from the cooperative support member-businesses to compile their quarterly income and expenditure statements using information from the daily point of sales listing and the daily income and expenditure tracker.
How to Get It: Visit the Office to purchase a copy, request a copy by email to contact.brickfishcooperative@gmail.com or download a copy.
Book 4: The Simple Inventory Template
This template is used for managing physical products/stocks in the warehouse. Tracking inventory effectively is non-negotiable, to avoid stockout and product expiry. Keeping inventory spreadsheets help you monitor stock levels, sales, and reorder schedules. This ensures you never run out of popular items or waste money on excess inventory or incur losses through products expiry.
Our Inventory Tracking Template is a user-friendly tool that keeps inventory operations organized and efficient. It brings together receiving stock, stock issue and stock monitoring and, helps businesses determine their next orders.
Three Main Components:
- Receiving Stock Section: Completed when stock is taken into the warehouse
- Stock Issuing Section: Completed when stock is being allocated to shelves/salespoints
- Monitoring Section: Completed when carrying out stock update and preparing list for new orders
How to Get It: Visit the Office to purchase a copy, request a copy by email to contact.brickfishcooperative@gmail.com or download a copy.
Ready to Transform Your Business Finances?
Contact us today to learn more about our financial management system and how we can help your business succeed.