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The Smart and Savvy Exit - Season Four Review - Ellen McIlhenny

23/3/2021

Ellen McIlhenny - “The Smart and Savvy Exit – Season Four Overview”

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INTRODUCTION
Because of a scheduling move, I will be interviewing Mary Ashby next week on the importance of having a financial advisor on your exit strategy team. So, this week I am going to do my overview of season four. We had a lot of good information this season, and I want to go back to give you a brief description and information on how to find the podcast if any of the topics interest you.

First, I want to talk about a subject that has become top of mind for me a lot recently, and that is how important it is to put great bookkeeping procedures in place from the moment you open your business.

Many of the people I work with use QuickBooks as their bookkeeping software. I am a big fan of QuickBooks for small companies, but I have found recently that a lot of companies are being hurt by the fact that their QuickBooks processing procedures when they first started their companies were not good. Now that they desire monthly, accurate financial statements to review they are finding that cash accounts do not balance and the process of going back and reconstructing is both time consuming and costly. One of the most vital statements is the balance sheet and that document is cumulative from day one.

Many small business owners starting out want to save money by taking on the bookkeeping themselves. That can be a good strategy at first, especially when there are still very few transactions. I would recommend, however, that you put in place procedures to reconcile as often as possible. It would be a good idea to have an accountant (your CPA or a professional bookkeeper) look at your chart of accounts and your reconciling procedures to be sure everything is being done correctly. QuickBooks Online has been streamlined to make it easy to record transactions, but there are ways that things can get out of balance if everything is not recorded a certain way.

As I have said many times when talking about building value, your financial statements are so important, not only for your possible exit, but anytime you need the help from the bank with a loan or line of credit. Those financials will need to be accurate.

Show Objectives - The Why

Today we will be overviewing the show topics from the last eleven weeks. The general topic for this season was building value for exits with a couple of interviews. Below I have listed the title of the show from episode 2 through 11 with a link to the corresponding podcasts. Week one was an overview.

Episodes
On January 12, I interviewed Rebecca Graf. Rebecca was part of a family business that sold. We talked about the unique challenges they faced.

Podcast links -

On January 19, I began the first of our Building Value Series which dealt with building an excellent management team.
Podcast Links -

On January 26, was the second of our Building Value Series in which I discussed clarifying the vision and core values.
Podcast Links -

On February 2, was part three of the Building Value Series. Hiring and keeping good employees was the topic for the day.
Podcast Links -

On February 9, we talked about effective marketing and how it builds value in our fourth segment in the Building Value Series.
Podcast Links -

On February 16 was Building Value Part Five – the importance of great financial statements.
Podcast Links -

On February 23 I expanded on the Family Transfer topic and all the challenges involved.
Podcast Links -

On March 2, I interviewed Jill Tuchman a serial entrepreneur who closed on the sale of her third company on March 1.
Podcast Links -

On March 9, I talked about the importance of having a CPA on your exit team.
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Last week, on March 16, I talked about what to look for in a potential buyer.
Podcast Links -

Shows
Find all My Podcasts at https://pod.co/future-financial-confidence-with-ellen-mcilhenny
Next Week: Episode 13 of Season 4 – Interview with Mary Ashby – The importance of having a financial advisor on your exit team.

Resources:
Written by Ellen McIlhenny
Owner of CFO Plus Services, a Fractional CFO services firm which also offers Back Office Bookkeeping Services. Author of the business novel The Big Turnaround; How Bad Management Nearly Destroyed an Exceptional Company. Check it out at https://thebigturnaround.com

You can connect with Ellen on any of her #cfoplusservices platforms or ellen@cfoplusservices.com
https://cfoplusservices.com
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