During the latest Make a Wave webinar on budgeting and fundraising, we have asked participants to share 5 top mistakes to avoid when managing finances for their starting social enterprise…
Here’s the crowdsourced results:
- Scraping by without doing a cash-flow forecast
- Prioritising business finances above personal finances
- Being scared of my accounts and of spreadsheets
- Self-doubting the value of my work
- Not keeping accounts up to date - Putting too much attention on the merchandising and not enough on the CORE product/service of the business
- Not properly estimating costs
- Forgetting to cost in my time, and the time spent marketing the business, or planning for it.
- Not talking to potential customers
- Getting stuck in a sales lead that is not going anywhere.
- Not testing or learning from the piloting or prototyping experience
- Spending less than 80% of my time on sourcing income
- Not keeping a timesheet
- Not stating my payment terms clearly enough
- Stay isolated (if you don’t necessarily need input, always ask for it, tell people and communicate what is happening).
Here’s what you need to do instead:
- Be in control of your cash in real-time is an attitude that will make all the difference.
- Remember to cost for your time
- Remember to value your worth!
- Map your expenses, your costs, and YOUR REVENUE STREAMS
- Keep focused on the CORE of your business
- Align your financial results with the impact you promised to make (keep focus, kick the distractions out)
- Assess your funders or your customers, do you all fit together? Is there a mismatch?
What are the top mistakes you should avoid? Share in the comments below!
With great thanks to Stephanie Wilcock, Ruth Rosselson, Michelle Ayavoro, Jennifer Carr, Jane Bradley, Hannah Beatrice Prittie, Jo McGrath, Jackie Malcolm, Annette Dhami, Jo Caley.