SYWTOABP: Spreadsheets

This is, perhaps, the least sexy topic of a decidedly unsexy series of blog postings about opening a brew pub in BC. However, if there is one thing that becomes readily apparent as time passes by, is what a disadvantage people are at in the business world if they can’t use Microsoft Office, particularly Excel. Relying exclusively on consultants, accountants, bookkeepers and bloggers to tell you which numbers are the most important to your business, is not a recipe for long-term success and will cost you money.  This isn’t just some blogger talking. This is advice that the authors of “The Knack” also try to hammer home.

Accounting isn’t rocket science.  It relies, for the most part, on simple addition and subtraction.  Time Value of Money calculations are a bit more work, but Excel has ‘wizards’ that probably can walk you through it by now.  This post isn’t about accounting. It isn’t even about the time value of money. It’s about taking the numbers you have and finding out the numbers you need to know.

Brewing Up a Biz: Money Hunting

I feel like the proverbial son returning to the blog after a trip to the top of the mountain.  Unfortunately, the “mountain,” in my case, was a trip to the doctor’s office to find out if this flu really was going to kill me. It was not the swine variety.  Doc assured me I would live.  (I really think they should start naming these animal viruses after their respective food groups, i.e. not avian flu but chicken soup flu; not swine flu but bacon flu—much more appetizing.)

So although I have been plugging along on “all things business,” thankfully, my illness did somewhat coincide with “the end of the business plan.” I had a chance to convalesce in peace, not that the business plan will ever be “finished,” per se. But there comes a point after weeks and months of sitting at the computer—working and re-working charts, facts, and figures (and, yes, a little BS, although I prefer “colourful motivational detail”)—when you say, “Hey, this thing just might get the job done.”  And by  “get the job done,” I mean “convince someone to give me money.”  Because in spite of all of my drive and desire to make the best beer EVER, the ugly truth of a lack of capital keeps rearing up.