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Knowing “”What is Accounting?”" is the key to success.
The company is run by the management. And accounting keeps track of the business. Keeping track of the elements of business that is what Accounting is.
What are the elements of business?
Think of this, there are two elements of water, one is Hydrogen and the other one is Oxygen. If any of these is missing, there’s no water.
In business there are only three elements. Customer. Product, Cash. If any of these are absent, there’s no business.
Imagine when you open a shop and no one walks in, there are no customers. Do you think it will endure for long? It will not take very long.
What the customer wants is a product.
Now, if I come up to you and say ‘excuse me what are you selling? you say, Oh, I don’t know what I’m selling just give me your money. How long are you going to last? There is no product. There’s no business.
Customers want product. Every business person desires to have the customers money.
Why do people set up a business? A business person wants money, a customer wants product. We start business to make money. A customer gives money if he is fulfilled with the product he gets.
This is a very interesting relationship. To keep the customer happy. This is a long term business scheme.
Out of these three elements, only two of them budge. How do they move?
They move between the customer and you.
In the buy and sell process, product goes out to the customer and then money comes in.
When you purchase, product comes in from the supplier and money goes out.
If you look at the three elements, only two elements move.
Product enters we call it buy.
If a product leaves, we call it sell.
When you purchase, product comes in, cash goes out. This is Pay. When you buy, you must pay.
Sell, product leaves money enters. You sell and then collect.
You see product and cash, move in opposite directions.
Product is to the right and cash is to the left. Product and cash must always go in opposite directions.
If your product and money move in the same direction, you’re in serious trouble.
You sell product and then product leaves. You don’t collect cash.
You’re committing a financial suicide if you sell with no any collection.
All the sale must be attended with cash.
So, let us look at this. When you buy and sell.
When you purchase, accountant calls this expenses, when you sell accountant calls this income.
So the movement of product goes directly into the profit & loss account.
Profit and loss account determines the movement of product, this is the performance of the business.
Income and expenses equals profit or loss. If the income is more than the expenses, there is a profit. If an income is less than expenses, then there’s a loss.
Cash movement is recorded in the cash flow statement. Accountants call cash that comes in as inflow.
Outflow is what accountants call for cash that goes out.
If inflow is more than outflow you get a net cash flow that is positive, a positive balance.
If outflow is more than inflow then you have a negative net cash flow,a negative balance, or a bank overdraft.
Very simple for starting your own business. Isn’t? Profit and loss account, measures the movement of product.
Cash flow is determined by the cash flow statement.
So therefore, profit and loss account has nothing to do with cash.
The movement of products are expressed in dollars and cents but it has nothing to do with cash.
For you to easily remember this. Here’s a song for you to sing, in the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb
“Profit and loss is performance, performance, performance.
Profit and loss is performance has nothing to do with cash.”
Remember, Profit and Loss account only determines the performance of the business.
Accounting is just merely keeping track of the elements of a business.
let me quickly recap of these good business ideas, when we say accounting is keeping track of the elements of the business. What are the elements of business?
- Customer
- Product
- Cash
How many elements only move?
Two: Product and Cash.
How do they move?
In and out in opposite direction.
Buy must be accompanied with pay.
Sell must be accompanied with collect.
Product goes straight into the profit and loss account.
The movement of cash goes straight into the cash flow.
The key to success is learning that Profit and loss account has got nothing to do with cash.