Small Business Doctor is an Intuit Quickbooks ProAdvisor certified firm with reasonable rates. Every bookkeeper is a certified bookkeeper. We can handle payroll if requested and can clean up your books if needed.
Learn more about Small Business Doctor's bookkeeping and accounting
Every small business has a limiting factor. It could be leads, cash flow, capacity, almost anything. The Small Business Doctor diagnoses and develops a treatment plan for your bottleneck.
From business plan analysis to routine small business checkups to strategy sessions, the Small Business Doctor provides the full-suite of strategic fractional CFO services.
Learn all about accounting, finance, business strategy, economics, and financial math from the basics to the advanced. I've taught and tutored these subjects for years, helping everyone from teens to postdocs, CPAs and MDs.
I want us all to grow. It's never too late to learn something new.
One commonly used model for understanding a business is the balance sheet model. From the balance sheet, we can understand corporate finance, whether we’re talking about a small business like a bakery or a huge corporation like Ford Motor Company. Most of corporate finance boils down to 3 sets of questions that relate to the 3 main parts of a balance sheet.
One the lefthand side of the balance sheet are the assets. There are long-term assets like equipment and machinery. The first question of business finance is in which of these long-lived assets should the business invest? And how much money should be invested in each one? Such questions are capital budgeting questions.
Above the long-term assets on the lefthand side of the balance sheet are the short-term assets. The principal short-term asset is cash. Cash is king, and the worst problems for most small businesses involve cash.
There is often a significant difference in timing between cash inflows to a small business and its cash outflows. A bakery has to buy its big expensive floor mixers before it will receive money from customers for the cookies they will enjoy. A landscaping company will need to buy its zero turn mower, trailer and truck before being paid for mowing. The difference between a small business’s current assets, primarily cash, and its current liabilities, basically its current bills, is its net working capital. How best to manage a small business’s cash flows is the second big question of business finance.
How a small business’s financial manager manages the timing differences in these cash flows depends a lot on that company’s capital structure. The righthand side of the balance sheet is where we find a business’s liabilities and its equity. These two sections show us how those assets on the lefthand side are financed. Was equipment purchased with a loan? That’s a liability. Was it purchased with an owner’s contribution? That’s equity. What should the best capital structure be for a small business? That’s the third big question of corporate finance.
Old Fashioned Service
I Tailor My Services To Align With Your Needs
Over the years, I have happily and confidentially advised a wide range of clients from a plumber near Pittsburgh to a robotics startup to a multi-state pediatrics practice. I am always your primary point of contact and hold myself accountable for your success.
The initial consultation is always free. My billing goal is to always provide clients with a high return on investment when working with me irrespective of their budget.
I am not a salesman. I will only take on a client when I can provide genuine value for them. Reach out if you need expert advice, assistance or have a question.
Hi there! I'm Matt. I'm a Christian, husband and father of four. I'm a graduate of Calvin, Harvard, Cardiff and Johns Hopkins Universities. I have a PhD in Economics, an MBA in Finance and an MS in Data Analytics. I'm a numbers guy who can communicate well!
I began this service to work directly with the small and mid-sized business owners who grow our great country's economy. Since 1999, I've worked with owners across industries from high tech IT and robotics to small farmers and artists. I've also helped and advised nonprofits from churches to civic organizations.
I also served as a Finance Staff Officer and eventually as the National Division Chief for Measurement Research within the US Coast Guard. The research and methods I created there continue to guide strategic decisions to this day.
I enjoy being active outdoors, especially in wild lands. Hiking, biking and fly fishing are some of my favorite pastimes.
I also love dogs! I'm an AKC obedience evaluator, and I train service and therapy dogs.
Operating Expenses Disguised as Inventory
Companies need to keep some amount of inventory. When I go to a home repair supplier, I expect them to have the copper pipe I need in stock. When I go to my local bakery, I expect them to have the macarons I crave in stock. When I go to my local grocer, I expect […]
Big companies are incentivized to increase product specialization and complexity. Why?
Our culture values specialization. Having specialized skills often leads to outsized material benefits. It also often results in praise and social status. Consider the social recognition that would be given to a medical doctor who is a primary care family medicine doctor compared to that given to an orthopedic surgeon. They are both highly educated, […]
Transaction Costs in the American Economy from 1870 to 1970
What Are Transaction Costs? Transaction costs are often overlooked in economics and textbook finance. In real life economics, however, they play a very significant role. In corporate finance, you can see many of a company’s transaction costs located in the selling and administrative categories within the Selling, General and Administrative (SG&A) section of their Income […]
During the Great Depression, British economist Ronald Coase wrote a famous essay on the nature of the firm or company. As with America at the time, many free-market economies were also enduring a severe and difficult economic depression. The Soviet Union, however, was growing to become a significant industrial economy. This led to a debate […]
Transaction Costs and SG&A Expenses
Selling, General or Administrative Expenses One way to see how economic transaction costs are internalized within a company is in the SG&A Expense lines of a company’s income statement. All of the selling and administrative expenses are internalized transaction costs, and so is the insurance expense within the general expenses category. This is not the […]
What Is the Balance Sheet? The Balance Sheet is one of the primary financial statements used in accounting. The Balance Sheet shows a snapshot of a business’s financial position at a point in time. There are two sections: Assets and Liabilities & Equity. Not only does the Balance Sheet show individual and composite account balances, […]
Statement of Comprehensive Income
What Is the Statement of Comprehensive Income? The Statement of Comprehensive Income is a financial statement for items that are not included within Net Income from the Income Statement but nevertheless do affect the equity section of the Balance Sheet. The Statement of Comprehensive Income shows total comprehensive income. The Statement of Comprehensive Income includes […]
0 Comments
No comments yet. Be the first to comment