Articles & tools to help business owners with finance

For many small business owners, the art of pricing can feel like a mysterious balancing act, but it doesn’t have to be.

We break down 5 essential tips to help small business owners set the right price. From understanding your costs to testing pricing models and running simulations.

As we head into 2025, cash management will evolve significantly, driven by technological advancements, economic shifts, and changing business needs.

Managing finances can be overwhelming. For small businesses, it’s often the toughest part of staying afloat. But here’s the good news: AI is changing everything.

At Trezy, we see it time and again: entrepreneurs brimming with great ideas and big plans, only to have their growth stifled by cash flow challenges they didn’t see coming.

We’ve all heard it before, but for good reason - cash is king. And insolvency is the grim reaper of most small businesses today. Proper cash flow management helps keep insolvency at bay.

EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) is a vital metric for assessing a business's core profitability by comparing revenues with operational costs. It's essential for evaluating performance, comparing with industry peers, and attracting investors. Understanding EBIT helps businesses make informed financial decisions and identify areas for improvement, such as adjusting prices when supplier costs rise.

Understanding the balance sheet is essential for evaluating a company's financial health. This guide highlights the critical components of the balance sheet, providing valuable insights for SMEs, agencies, advisors, and accounting firms advising on cash-flow management.

Trezy's innovative AI-driven platform aims to empower small businesses worldwide with real-time financial insights and support.

In order to manage your business the right way, you need to know how to calculate your break even point. At Trezy, we love to provide simple and straightforward tips to help you lead a more successful company, so let’s take a look at it through some different angles!

Discounted cash flow is a method used to estimate the present value of an asset by discounting its expected future cash flows using an appropriate discount rate. It considers the time value of money and is useful for valuing stocks, properties, bonds, and evaluating investment projects.

What is liquidity? Sounds weird right? Well, it’s not about a new craft beer or an energy drink! Liquidity is an interesting concept! It defines how efficiently or easily an asset can be turned into cash - while preserving its market value.

The Quick Ratio, also known as an Acid-test, is a measure of liquidity. But what exactly is the Quick Ratio, how is it calculated, and how is it used in business?

Incremental cash flow is a financial metric used to assess the potential profitability of new projects, products, or investments by comparing the expected cash inflows and outflows. It helps businesses make informed decisions on which initiatives to pursue by identifying those with positive incremental cash flow (profitable) and rejecting those with negative incremental cash flow (unprofitable). The calculation considers revenue, expenses, and initial investment, while factoring in potential complexities like sunk costs, cannibalization, and opportunity costs.

Cash basis accounting is a method that recognizes revenue and expenses when cash is received or paid, respectively. This article explores the principles of cash basis accounting, its advantages, such as simplicity and cash flow visibility, and its drawbacks, including potential misrepresentation of financial position and non-compliance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

Free cash flow yield is a financial metric that measures the amount of cash a company generates relative to its market value. It provides insight into the company's financial health, ability to pay dividends, and potential for reinvestment. The article explains the definition, calculation, and significance of free cash flow yield, distinguishing between levered and unlevered yields and their implications for investors and stakeholders.

Operating cash flow (OCF) is a financial metric that measures the amount of cash generated from a company's core business operations. It helps assess a company's ability to generate sufficient cash to fund its operations without relying on external financing. The article explains OCF's definition, importance, and two calculation methods: the direct and indirect methods.

Cash flow forecasting is a crucial process for small business owners to estimate the inflow and outflow of cash over a given period. It helps plan for growth, manage debt, and maximize returns on assets. This guide outlines the steps involved in cash flow forecasting, including choosing a forecasting period and method, calculating cash inflows and outflows, and creating the forecast. It also highlights the strategic advantages and caveats to consider.

Cash pooling conventions allow a parent company or subsidiary to manage the group's treasury by transferring funds from cash-positive entities to cash-negative entities. These conventions must be in writing, signed by all parties, and comply with market-based interest rates. While banks have a monopoly on treasury operations, French banking law allows an exception for intra-group transactions. Cash pooling agreements are generally considered ordinary transactions if concluded under normal conditions.

Petty cash is a small amount of cash kept on hand by a company to cover minor expenses or reimbursements when issuing a check is impractical. The petty cash fund is managed by a designated custodian, who tracks disbursements, replenishes the fund, and maintains records for accounting purposes. Proper controls and procedures are implemented to prevent misuse or abuse of the petty cash fund.

The Profit First method is a revolutionary approach to business finance that prioritizes profitability over revenue. By setting aside a designated percentage of income as profit from the outset, businesses can reduce financial stress, streamline expenses, establish a sustainable income, and create a financial safety net. This paradigm shift awakens the consciousness of entrepreneurs to the importance of rewarding themselves and enjoying a better quality of life.

The share capital of a company is a mandatory element, consisting of cash contributions and/or contributions in kind from the partners or shareholders. It is divided into shares or stocks distributed among them. The initial share capital can be modified through capital increases or reductions. The share capital represents the total value of assets transferred by the partners or shareholders to the company in exchange for ownership rights.

Throughout this article, we’ll take a look at what EBITDA is and how you can calculate it, and how it can be used to manage your business’ finances more effectively.

This article provides guidance on how to anticipate and address cash flow shortages in a business. It highlights the importance of regular financial monitoring, offers internal strategies such as negotiating payment terms and managing accounts receivable, and external solutions like bank loans, factoring, and operational adjustments.

This article provides strategies for businesses to improve their cash flow. It covers negotiating better payment terms with suppliers and customers, reducing overhead costs, managing debt, and seeking additional financing if needed. The overall goal is to identify areas where cash outflows can be reduced or delayed, and inflows accelerated.

This article provides a comprehensive guide on creating a cash flow forecast, which is a monthly projection of a company's future cash inflows and outflows. It explains the importance of a cash flow forecast in identifying potential financial difficulties and developing strategies to address them. The article also offers practical tips for accurately forecasting cash flows, emphasizing the need for realistic assumptions and considering various factors that may impact the company's financial situation.

This article explains the concept of net cash flow, which is a financial metric that measures the difference between cash inflows and cash outflows for a business during a given period. It provides the formula for calculating net cash flow, discusses the three types of cash flow activities (operating, financing, and investing), and highlights the importance of tracking net cash flow for small businesses, such as identifying trends, forecasting growth, attracting investment, and locating weaknesses.

The current ratio is commonly used to allow business owners to access the liquidity of their company.

Cash flow is a crucial indicator of a company's current and future treasury position and financial health. It measures the net cash inflows and outflows by taking into account cash receipts (cash in) and cash disbursements (cash out). Monitoring cash flow allows businesses to assess profitability, anticipate cash flow tensions, make strategic decisions, and realize savings. Positive cash flow indicates surplus cash, while negative cash flow indicates a cash deficit. Companies can increase cash flow by reducing outflows, increasing inflows, limiting customer payment delays, negotiating with suppliers, managing inventory, selecting appropriate credit options, smoothing expenses, and improving debt collection.

This article explores various options for businesses to effectively manage excess cash, including financial investments, early supplier payments, intra-group loans, business expansion through new investments or acquisitions, and real estate investments. It highlights the potential benefits and risks associated with each strategy.

The article discusses the two accounting systems: accrual accounting and cash accounting. It outlines the differences between the two methods, their advantages and disadvantages, and provides guidance on which system should be used in different circumstances.

This article discusses various financing options available to businesses for managing their short-term cash flow needs and working capital requirements. It covers tools such as bank overdrafts, invoice discounting, factoring, and mobilization of receivables (Dailly), highlighting their benefits and costs.

The article emphasizes the importance of focusing on three key business fundamentals: understanding financial indicators, continual learning and seeking guidance, and maintaining a positive attitude when interacting with customers and stakeholders. These fundamentals are crucial for small businesses to survive and thrive in challenging times.

The article provides a detailed guide on how to present the cash flow statement, an essential component of a business plan. It explains the purpose of the cash flow statement, its structure, and the various inflows and outflows that should be included, such as revenue, financing sources, expenses, and investments. The article emphasizes the importance of accurately capturing all cash movements and presenting them in the corresponding months.

Liquidation refers to the process of selling off a company's inventory and assets, typically at a discounted price, to generate cash. This cash is then used to pay off creditors, with secured creditors being paid first, followed by unsecured creditors and stakeholders. Liquidation is often a precursor to a business closing.

A company has positive cash flow when its cash inflows exceed cash outflows. This article discusses the importance of positive cash flow, explores the three types of cash flow (operating, investing, and financing), and explains how they contribute to a company's overall financial health and long-term growth.

This article explains the importance of creating a financial model for your business to manage capital resources, evaluate performance, and make informed decisions. It provides a step-by-step guide on how to build a financial model using historical data, calculating ratios, making assumptions, forecasting, and visualizing the output.

The article emphasizes the importance of financial preparedness and risk management for businesses. It suggests that companies should plan for potential economic downturns by maintaining sufficient cash reserves, typically enough to sustain operations for a year without revenue. This proactive approach is recommended by experts and can help businesses weather difficult times and survive economic crises.

This article highlights the importance of utilizing the right technology and software tools to streamline operations, improve efficiency, and ultimately increase profitability for businesses of all sizes. It provides an overview of various software solutions such as email clients, accounting packages, CRM systems, communication tools, and order processing systems.

This article provides a comprehensive guide for individuals interested in starting and owning a small business. It covers key aspects such as choosing the right business idea, creating a business plan, securing funding, navigating legal requirements, and strategies for sustained growth and success. The article emphasizes the importance of passion, determination, and delivering high-quality products or services while listening to customer feedback.

This article explains the importance of understanding and effectively managing customer acquisition cost (CAC) for businesses. It provides methods to calculate CAC and offers strategies to reduce it, ensuring profitable operations and sustainable growth.

This article outlines nine essential steps for creating a comprehensive and compelling business plan that will help entrepreneurs secure funding and successfully launch their venture. It emphasizes the importance of a well-structured business plan as a tool for presenting a solid strategy, convincing potential partners, and achieving objectives.

This article explores five common traits of successful entrepreneurs and encourages readers to find their own path to business ownership based on their strengths and personalities. It emphasizes the importance of self-reflection, aligning personal goals with the changing world, and choosing a route that suits individual strengths rather than taking the fastest path.

This article provides a comprehensive guide for entrepreneurs on conducting a market study to assess the viability of their business idea. It covers the three main approaches: quantitative (statistical data), qualitative (in-depth exploration of customer behavior and preferences), and documentary (researching existing reports and publications). The article emphasizes the importance of thoroughly understanding customer needs, identifying key market players, and analyzing industry trends before starting a business.

This article outlines five essential resources that can help startups overcome common challenges and achieve long-term success. It emphasizes the importance of robust accounting systems, efficient invoicing tools, appropriate insurance coverage, maintaining emergency funds, and having access to short-term credit when needed.

This article discusses eight strategies for small businesses to boost their profits by implementing effective inventory management practices. It emphasizes the importance of having a systematic approach, leveraging technology, regularly auditing inventory, utilizing data analysis, adapting to market demands, adopting a just-in-time approach, delegating inventory responsibilities, and empowering employees.

The article emphasizes the crucial role of middle management in startups. It argues that middle management provides structure, decision-making oversight, risk assessment, and career progression, which are essential for a company's success and employee motivation. While some advocate for eliminating middle management, the article suggests reshaping its responsibilities instead.

This article discusses the importance of effective personnel management in an organization. It covers various administrative tasks involved in managing employee relations, from recruitment to termination, ensuring compliance with legal obligations and maximizing productivity. Strategies like standardization and automation are recommended for optimizing personnel management as a company grows.

This article provides a comprehensive step-by-step guide for aspiring entrepreneurs to start their own business in 2024. It covers essential aspects of launching a new company, including idea generation, market research, business planning, legal requirements, funding, and practical tips for successful execution.

This article provides an in-depth understanding of agile project management and its application in software development. It highlights the advantages of the agile approach over traditional waterfall models, emphasizing its flexibility and iterative nature, which caters to rapidly changing client requirements. The article outlines the crucial steps involved in agile project management, including project planning, product roadmap development, and release planning. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of retrospection and adaptability in ensuring the success of agile projects.

This article provides tips and strategies for entrepreneurs and small business owners to overcome the fear of failure, which can often hinder progress and growth. The author shares personal experiences and offers practical advice, such as setting ambitious goals, moving quickly to avoid overthinking, and seeking accountability from trusted individuals.

Logistics is a crucial function in most medium and large enterprises, impacting all aspects of business operations. It involves managing the physical flow of materials, products, and resources to meet demand effectively. Logistics aims to optimize processes, reduce costs, and improve coordination across departments to enhance customer satisfaction and maintain a competitive edge.

The article discusses various methods for small businesses to collect data on where their tourists are coming from, such as using guest books, survey cards, or online forms. It provides suggestions from tourism experts on simple and effective ways to gather visitor zip codes and origin information.

This article provides a detailed overview of what a marketing plan is, its key components, and how to create an effective plan. It covers defining your target audience, conducting market research, developing a marketing strategy, selecting channels and content formats, setting a budget, and measuring success through relevant metrics.

This article provides an overview of the most popular social media platforms in 2024, based on their global active user base. It highlights the top platforms like Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and WeChat, and their respective user numbers. The article emphasizes the dominance of Meta (formerly Facebook) in the social media landscape, with several of its platforms ranking among the most popular.

This article provides practical tips to make a small office space more attractive, comfortable, and productive. It covers strategies like choosing modern and space-saving furniture, providing amenities like healthy snacks and beverages, incorporating live plants to improve air quality, and creating dedicated relaxation areas. The goal is to foster a calm and energetic work environment that promotes employee well-being and efficiency.

Consumer purchasing power is a measure of the ability of consumers to buy goods and services. It is influenced by various economic factors like inflation, real income levels, exchange rates, availability of credit, interest rates, supply and demand conditions, and taxes. Understanding these factors is crucial for businesses to price their products and services appropriately for their target audience.

The article emphasizes the importance of shifting the focus of communication from self-promotion to customer needs. It suggests strategies like sharing industry-relevant stories, answering customer questions, and highlighting customer experiences to build a stronger connection and engagement with the audience.

A valid contract requires three essential conditions: the parties must give their informed consent, they must have the legal capacity to enter into a contract, and the content of the contract must be lawful and certain. These conditions are cumulative and must all be met for a contract to be legally binding.

A sales pipeline is a systematic approach to tracking prospects through the various stages of the sales process, from initial contact to post-purchase follow-up. It helps sales teams organize their efforts, move prospects towards a purchase, and forecast future revenue. This article outlines the importance of a well-defined sales pipeline, its stages, and how to build an effective one tailored to a business's specific needs.

An About Us page is a crucial part of a website, serving as an introduction to the brand's story, values, mission, and the people behind it. It helps build trust and credibility with potential customers by providing insight into the company's purpose and offerings. This article offers guidance on crafting an effective About Us page, including key components to include and examples.

This article provides comprehensive strategies for ecommerce businesses to proactively address common issues that lead to customer complaints, such as shipping delays, inventory problems, inaccurate product information, and website usability. It emphasizes the importance of transparent communication, effective inventory management, detailed product descriptions, and optimizing the website experience. Additionally, it highlights the value of soliciting customer feedback and using complaints as an opportunity for continuous improvement. By implementing these proactive measures, businesses can reduce customer frustration, enhance the overall shopping experience, and foster customer satisfaction and loyalty.

This article provides 21 proven ecommerce marketing strategies to help online businesses drive traffic, convert visitors into customers, and retain existing customers. It covers various tactics such as SEO, influencer marketing, social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, pay-per-click advertising, cart abandonment recovery, SMS marketing, email marketing, website optimization, product line expansion, blogging, personalization, user-generated content, conversion rate optimization, and customer loyalty programs.

This article provides a comprehensive guide on the key social media metrics that businesses should track to measure the success of their social media marketing efforts. It highlights the importance of analyzing data points like audience growth rate, engagement rate, and conversion rate to evaluate the strength of social media channels and the effectiveness of campaigns. The article also emphasizes the role of social media analytics tools in collecting and interpreting this data to identify patterns, spark new ideas, and identify areas for improvement.

The article discusses four key lessons the author has learned from their experience with social media marketing. It emphasizes the importance of focusing on building communities, tailoring strategies to individual goals, avoiding blindly following popular accounts, and having clear objectives for social media efforts.

Coworking is a new way of organizing work by sharing an office space with other entrepreneurs. It fosters collaboration, breaks isolation for freelancers and small businesses, provides flexible workspace solutions, and creates a supportive community for entrepreneurs. While offering advantages like affordability and networking opportunities, coworking has limitations such as noise levels and lack of privacy for confidential work.

Merchandising encompasses all the strategic efforts undertaken to promote and sell products effectively within a retail setting. It involves visually appealing product displays, an inviting store layout, and creating a seamless customer experience to encourage purchases and foster customer loyalty.

The article covers the definition, importance, and methods of measuring and improving customer experience. It emphasizes creating delightful, seamless, personalized, and engaging experiences across all touchpoints to foster brand loyalty and customer retention.

This article discusses the importance of selecting the right ecommerce software for an online business. It highlights the key features and functionalities to look for in ecommerce software solutions that can help promote and sell products online effectively while enabling business growth and scalability.

This article provides a detailed overview of trade shows, which are events where members of a particular industry gather to showcase their latest products and services. It highlights the purpose, format, and key participants of trade shows, including exhibitors and attendees.

This guide provides strategies and tips for finding suitable rental accommodations that cater to the needs of remote workers, such as digital nomads, freelancers, and employees working from home. It aims to help readers find the perfect rental that supports their productivity and overall work-life balance.