Managing By The Numbers: A Commonsense Guide To Understanding And Using Your Company's Financials

by Chuck Kremer

They might not be able to hit 20 percent growth again, they figured, but they still expected sales to rise substantially. How much? Carolyn began pulling apart the numbers. She calculated the number of customers who had bought from them during the previous year. She figured out the average order per customer. She estimated how many of these customers were good for repeat business. Then she estimated the number of new customers they were likely to get from the marketing campaigns they were planning and calculated the new business likely to come in from these customers. Eventually she came up with a projected 17 percent increase in sales and showed it to Bill.

Carolyn had learned that profit was only one measuring stick.

Eyeball the plan and see what it tells you.

prepare best-case, worst-case, and expected scenarios.

The Accounting GameTM, the most successful financial program for nonfinancial people in the world, which teaches accounting by having students run a child’s lemonade stand.