One of the smartest investments you can make as a Small Business Owner is to engage an accountant to help you grow your business. This singular action will help you stay on top of your finances, and transform the numbers that run your business into insight you can use to improve it.

Where do you start when you consider setting up the accounting system of your business? What information should you give to the chief custodian of your accounting function? What value should this service provider add to your business, for the business to get the most from such expertise?

The answers to these questions depend on the type and nature of your business. Whatever they are, having year-round checklists is a good place to start. The checklists should cover the things you want to pass to the accountant, and what you want your accountant to put on the table in return. Whether you hire a full-time accountant or outsource the function, your main objective is to act and be guided by the need to make accounting a year-round work, not work that should wait until the last minute, to be done without plan or purpose.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/why-accounting-should-be-a-year-round-work/

One aspiration of wanting to be a Small Business Owner is the freedom to manage your time. However, a Small Business Owner who is running a business, full-time and hands-on, is not different from an employee of the business. The highly-sought freedom becomes an illusion, especially when the business begins to provide different products and services, with operations in multiple locations.

How can the Small Business Owner become a hands-off owner, and achieve independence of a small to medium-size business? The solution is to virtually automate the business by structuring it into a system where anyone can easily step into anyone else’s job. Here is a three-step plan for automating your business: Organisation Chart, Key Performance Indicators and Training Manuals.

Read the full article here: https://smefinance.org/3-steps-to-setting-up-your-business-on-auto/

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in support of government’s policy to promote agricultural businesses, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) for economic development and employment generation, introduced the Agric-Business/Small and Medium Enterprises Investment Scheme (AGSMEIS).

The objectives of the scheme, which gives collateral free loans of up to N10,000,000 to small businesses, are as follows:

To improve access to affordable and sustainable finance by Agri-businesses, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
Create employment opportunities.
Boost managerial capacity in agri-businesses and MSMEs, and grow them in line with the Federal Government agenda to develop the real sector and promote inclusive growth.
Development Bank 699 x 90

The sectors currently covered by the scheme include:
Businesses in the entire agriculture value chain, including production, inputs supply, storage, processing, logistics and marketing.
MSMEs in the real sector, including manufacturing, mining and petrochemicals.
MSMEs in the service sector, including information and communication technology (ICT) and the creative industry.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/how-to-get-n10m-cbn-collateral-free-loan/

When you are running a small business, you will be wearing many different hats, and struggling with a long to-do list. Your activities will be directed towards getting the business to make money. After all, a business that is not making money is not better than a hobby.

Regardless of your financial goals, your business may not be able to make money if you cannot manage and organise its finances. Here are six simple steps for creating order in the finances of your business:

1. Keep Track Of Your Income: You need to track the income of your business at daily, weekly, monthly and yearly intervals. This will help you understand how much money the business is bringing in.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/how-to-organise-your-small-business-finances/

The Small Business Owner must manage the different functions of the business, ranging from making products and managing employees, through marketing and distribution, to finance and accounting.

When you consider the manual process of reconciling the monthly books; the use of excel spreadsheets to record transactions; the upfront cost of storing information on dedicated hard drives that can hardly be accessed by more than one person at a time; the manual labour of recording hard copy receipts and stacking them in drawers; the valuable time wasted on this inefficient process; you will understand why many Small Business Owners leave their bookkeeping to the last minute.

The financial and accounting functions of the business can be a challenge for many Small Business Owners, mainly because of the time-consuming and tedious nature of the tasks. This does not have to be so if the Small Business Owner decides to automate the accounting process.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/6-steps-to-automate-your-bookkeeping-system/

Every Small Business Owner gets to understand that finance and accounting are two critical elements in the language of business. While he or she does not need to be an expert in either of these disciplines, an above average demonstration of intelligent ignorance in both of them is necessary for entrepreneurial success.

The good news is that the Small Business Owner doesn’t need to be a genius to acquire the competence to appreciate the flows and ebbs of business. Here are10 finance and accounting terms that a Small Business Owner should know:

1. Cash Flow: This is cash that flows into and flows out of the business, through trading activities, in a given period, say a month, quarter, half-year or full year. It is the difference between the cash available at the start of a period and the cash at the end of the same period. It is positive when the closing balance is higher than the opening balance, and negative when the reverse occurs.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/10-finance-accounting-lessons-for-small-business-owners/

As is often the case, a small business stands a good chance of success because of the skills that the owner brings into making the product or providing the service around which the business is built. Where the expertise of making the product or providing the service is not matched with commensurate experience in managing the finances of the business, as is often the case, the financial side of the business feel like a chore for the owner. What follows is that the owner and the business would slip into poor financial habits that inevitably cause harm to the business.

This needs not be so. The Small Business Owner can, and should, educate himself or herself to understand the skills essential to run the business, like handling simple accounting tasks and leveraging them for sound money management.

Read the full article here https://smefinance.org/how-to-monitor-and-manage-your-finances/

One of the first things that overly-optimistic Small Business Owners realise when seeking funding for their businesses is that banks do not fund business plans.

So, as a general rule, and barring the occasional exceptions, here is a short list of the hurdles a Small Business Owner must clear when he or she is applying for loan for a business from a commercial bank:

1. Collateral: Your business must have hard assets it can pledge to back its application for a business loan. The banks, on their part, will carefully examine the pledged assets to be sure that they are of sufficient value that will reduce their risk in lending to your business.

Read the full article here https://smefinance.org/7-hurdles-to-clear-when-your-business-needs-a-loan/

Are you thinking of owning a blog and you don’t know what to do or how to start a blog? Do you run a business and you haven’t made up your mind if your business needs a blog? Ok, sit back I’m 100% sure this article will guide you on how to start a blog. And if you haven’t decided if your business needs a blog, I guarantee this will change your mind.

This easy free step to step guide will show you how to start a blog. Not only how you can start a blog, you will also learn how you can run your blog the right way.

Click on the link to read the full article https://www.alphatriondigital.com/how-to-start-a-blog-easy-guide-on-how-to-create-a-blog/

The Entrepreneurship Development Centre(EDC) project is an initiative of the Central Bank Of Nigeria (CBN) that aims at tackling youth unemployment and eradicate poverty in Nigeria.

The idea is for interested public sector institutions that will be supported by CBN, foster private oriented and sustainable entrepreneurship development programmes in their respective zones.

The Central Bank Of Nigeria recently released criteria for selection of Entrepreneurship Development Centres under the Agribusiness, Small and Medium Enterprises (AGSMEIS).

Click on the link to see the criteria https://smefinance.org/cbn-releases-eligibility-criteria-for-entrepreneurship-development-centres/

You may be the Small Business Owner who is not comfortable with sitting at your desk and reviewing the numbers that mirror your business. You may think that reading of reports is a time-consuming exercise. Yet, you need a dashboard for you to monitor and control your business.

You need a report that can help you understand your business, and help you make better decisions about managing it. Beyond your overarching business plan, your monitoring and control starts with your budget, which contains your key financial goals; like making money, growing at a predetermined rate, hiring staff and expanding your customer base.

To increase the chances of success of your business, you must document these goals in the form of a budget that is complete with forecasts for best-case and worst-case scenarios.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/how-to-use-budget-variances-in-managing-your-business-finances/

Do you want to register a Business Name or a Company? We deliver in Five (5) business days!

Simply provide the information and items listed below, and leave the rest to us:

Business Name
* Proposed Name(s)
* Two Passport Photos of Promoter(s)
* Business Address
* Home Address
* Phone Number
* Email Address
* Personal ID of Promoters: Passport, Driver’s Licence, etc.
* Names of Promoters

Limited Liability Company
* Proposed Names(s)
* Names of Two (or more) Shareholders/Directors
* Objectives of the Business
* Home Addresses of Shareholders/Directors
* Phone Numbers of Shareholders/Directors
* Email Addresses of Shareholders/Directors
* Personal ID of Shareholders/Directors

Email above information to: enterprise@smefinance.org. Or, call: +234 815 612 1212

Are you ready to start your dream business? Or, you want to scale your business?

We coach Small Business Owners. We can help you get your business up and running. Or, help you grow your business.

We support start-up and scale-up of businesses, and specialise in nurturing entrepreneurs, through business development, funding assistance and hands-on mentoring.

We are the ultimate guide for small business.

Contact Us via this link https://smefinance.org/request-a-quote/

In the course of advising budding entrepreneurs, one hears one recurring request: ‘‘Help me get a loan to start my business.”

Truth be told. This request almost always falls on deaf ears. You will have great difficulty in get a taker. It is near impossible to find a bank that will advance credit to a start-up. The average banker will remind you of the high failure rate among start-ups, and rub this in with the fact that start-ups don’t have the revenue stream or assets to secure loans.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/five-steps-to-making-your-business-bankable/

In the course of advising budding entrepreneurs, one hears one recurring request: ‘‘Help me get a loan to start my business.”

Truth be told. This request almost always falls on deaf ears. You will have great difficulty in get a taker. It is near impossible to find a bank that will advance credit to a start-up. The average banker will remind you of the high failure rate among start-ups, and rub this in with the fact that start-ups don’t have the revenue stream or assets to secure loans.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/five-steps-to-making-your-business-bankable/

If you are thinking of starting a business, you must also be silently asking yourself: How much will it cost to start?

The cost of starting some businesses can be high while that of starting others can be far less expensive. It depends on what you’re starting, a micro, small or medium-size business. Even within these categories, start-up costs depend on the type of business.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/10-items-for-estimating-the-cost-of-starting-your-business/

Equipment financing is any method a business uses to fund the acquisition of equipment needed for running the business. This can range from equipment leasing, through loans tied to specified equipment, to lease-back where the business leverages an existing equipment to raise cash for additional purchases.

Equipment financing can help a business to finance up to 100 percent of the equipment it needs for its operations. Compared with a conventional credit transaction, equipment finance is also a faster and easier way to acquire such items as computers and cars, and everything in between, that are critical to running the business.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/equipment-financing-the-pros-and-cons/

In order to survive, there are some accounting documents that must be available in your business.

The management of a small business requires the preparation of documents for the filing of business taxes; application for business loans; the internal tracking of revenues; expenses and profitability. There are four main accounting documents that are essential for the performance of the functions listed above:

Clicl on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/the-four-most-important-accounting-documents-in-your-business/

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It is easy for the Small Business Owner to feel completely overwhelmed in the strive to manage the finances of the business.

This should not be. It is possible to learn the need-to-know fundamentals of accounting, enough to make the Small Business Owner feel prepared for the task of successfully take charge of a commercial enterprise. Here is a glossary of terms and a quick primer on the basics of business accounting.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/business-accounting-some-key-terms-you-must-understand/

It is easy for the Small Business Owner to feel completely overwhelmed in the strive to manage the finances of the business.

This should not be. It is possible to learn the need-to-know fundamentals of accounting, enough to make the Small Business Owner feel prepared for the task of successfully take charge of a commercial enterprise. Here is a glossary of terms and a quick primer on the basics of business accounting.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/business-accounting-some-key-terms-you-must-understand/

Bookkeeping is the recording of the financial activities of a business. It is part of the process of maintaining the accounts of the business, and involves keeping track of such transactions as payments, purchases, sales and receipts being made by the business.
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The bookkeeper captures the daily financial activities of the business in the petty cash book, suppliers’ ledger and general ledger. The summaries of these information provide the financial statements of the business.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/why-you-should-outsource-your-bookkeeping/

When you engage Small Business Owners in a conversation about the challenges they face in managing their business, they will mention one area of weakness they hate to deal with: Financial Management.

Managing finances is the area of the business that deals with handling of cash, bookkeeping, accounting and raising capital. Unfortunately, while most Small Business Owners admit that they are comfortable with the day-to-day operation of their businesses, like producing, marketing and selling their products and services, they are also the first to confess that they do not feel comfortable when dealing with the money side of their companies.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/you-must-understand-what-the-numbers-say-about-your-business/

Are you starting a business, growing a going concern or acquiring an existing enterprise? Whichever you are embarking on, you need to create a strong and bankable business plan.

A bankable business plan is a loan or investment proposal that earns approval and attracts financing for your venture. It is a document that addresses the needs of bankers and/or investors. It also aims to accomplish your goal as a Small Business Owner.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/how-purpose-can-make-your-business-plan-bankable/

Do you want to know how to access the N10m agribusiness loan?

The Agribusiness Small and Medium Enterprises Investment Scheme (AGSMEIS) is an initiative of the Bankers’ Committee. This platform seeks to support the efforts of the Federal Government to promote investment in agriculture. The platform aims at making an impact through small and medium enterprises. Consequently, this would help generate employment and enhance economic development.

Hence, you can borrow up to a maximum of N10 million under the scheme.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/loan-agribusiness-n10m/

As the competition for investment capital continues to grow, and your search for funding intensifies, you are faced with the need to put together a strong and compelling pitch that will convince investors to fund your start-up.

To improve your chance of winning investors for your start-up, here are 10 questions, each tailored to your idea that your pitch must answer:

Click the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/10-questions-your-start-up-pitch-must-answer/

As the competition for investment capital continues to grow, and your search for funding intensifies, you are faced with the need to put together a strong and compelling pitch that will convince investors to fund your start-up.

To improve your chance of winning investors for your start-up, here are 10 questions, each tailored to your idea that your pitch must answer:

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/10-questions-your-start-up-pitch-must-answer/

One reason financial institutions give for not approving credit applications from small businesses is that they do not have records of their transactions. It is common to find businesses that have been trading for many years but do not keep books.

This situation is made worse in the case of many Small Business Owners. Just as the businesses they run do not have records, they too do not keep records of their financial transactions. This chaos in their personal affairs Invariably spills into the running of their businesses, and stands as a big minus when they apply for credit on behalf of their businesses, particularly when they are required to support the loan applications with personal guarantees.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/keeping-good-records-will-improve-your-credit-worthiness/

You have been dreaming that some day you will start and run your own business. You are currently employed in a big company and are steadily progressing in your chosen career.

But, deep inside, you have the itch to move into your own line of work, the desire to have no one to answer to, and the urge to do something different with your life.

In this state of mind, what do you need to equip you to take the leap of faith that will propel you towards your goal?

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/three-must-have-skills-to-run-a-profitable-business/

You have been dreaming that some day you will start and run your own business. You are currently employed in a big company and are steadily progressing in your chosen career.

But, deep inside, you have the itch to move into your own line of work, the desire to have no one to answer to, and the urge to do something different with your life.

In this state of mind, what do you need to equip you to take the leap of faith that will propel you towards your goal?

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/three-must-have-skills-to-run-a-profitable-business/

There are times in the life of your business when mainstream finance options like loans and credits will be inadequate for your needs or beyond your reach. One option that may be available to you at a time like this is to consider accounts receivable financing as an alternative way of getting the cash that you need to run your business.

What, you may ask, is accounts receivable financing? Sometimes referred to as factoring, accounts receivable financing may be simply defined as a process whereby you sell the outstanding invoices for products or services already delivered by your business (otherwise known as receivables) to a financial institution (bank, finance house, etc.) at a price that is lower than the value of the invoices.

Click on the link to read the full article https://smefinance.org/how-to-turn-your-slow-invoices-to-cash/