Accounting for Startup Founders
Members of founding teams have different roles to play. Still, regardless of their area of expertise, every entrepreneur will one day find themselves in that desperate position...
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Members of founding teams have different roles to play. Still, regardless of their area of expertise, every entrepreneur will one day find themselves in that desperate position...
Posted by 'Laolu Samuel-Biyi
The only thing Nigerians can all agree on is that the country has many many problems. Most of these problems have simple solutions, but they are hard to solve because Nigerians as...
Posted by 'Laolu Samuel-Biyi
The crypto market is a wild place, and given how young the industry is and how I’m about 5 years into it, I can claim veteran status and opine somewhat authoritatively. I have...
Posted by 'Laolu Samuel-Biyi
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Posted by 'Laolu Samuel-Biyi
A primary role of Central Banks is managing the value of their local currencies. Depending on the specific dynamics of the economy, the Bank might be interested in strengthening,...
Posted by 'Laolu Samuel-Biyi
It is easy to conclude that certain countries or their nationals are intrinsically corrupt. After all, the word “corruption” has become meaningless to most Nigerians...
Posted by 'Laolu Samuel-Biyi
I’m still reeling from the circumstances leading to the #EndSARS protests and all the unfortunate developments since. The protests have been followed by reports of intimidation,...
Posted by 'Laolu Samuel-Biyi
Almost in cycles, there’s always a conversation on Twitter about sports betting. The most recent is one by a person who lost £447,880 over 12 years. These conversations are...
Posted by 'Laolu Samuel-Biyi
A long time ago, Martin Seligman, an American Psychologist, conducted a very interesting experiment. I’ll describe a simplified version: Two groups of dogs were placed in...
Posted by 'Laolu Samuel-Biyi
Nigeria did not play to its unique advantages, paid a needless economic price in the short term, and will continue to pay in the medium term.
Posted by 'Laolu Samuel-Biyi
Members of founding teams have different roles to play. Still, regardless of their area of expertise, every entrepreneur will one day find themselves in that desperate position where they have to make sense of financial statements. This could be when the tax auditors come knocking with a bill, or when investors ask technical questions.
They will quickly discover that beyond the technical capacity to develop a solution and the business skills to be able to sell it, the accounting and finance function can be one of the most painful and critical pressure points, and perhaps one of the few that can’t entirely be outsourced.
Over the past 10 years, I’ve taught several classes in Accounting and Finance with a focus on non-finance managers. I have also lectured the same to business students in universities. I have observed marked improvements in hundreds of students over the years, and it has been a joy to see confounded faces nod in understanding after only a few weeks.
Accounting is a very broad field, and it will take several years to attain true mastery, but for most real-life applications, the fundamentals should be enough to get by. Everyone in business should have a mature understanding of basic Accounting concepts, and they should be able to read, evaluate, and create financial statements from scratch. Accounting is the language of business, and you can only truly appreciate any prose if you understand the alphabet and appreciate the vocabulary.
I created a tutorial workbook many years ago, and it has served me very well. This workbook builds on the fundamentals of Accounting and develops into a full set of financial statements. The sheets and entries have detailed annotations using simple language, and the purpose of the workbook is to expose how ordinary business transactions compile into lines on the financial statement. Hopefully, this knowledge will help teams make smarter business decisions and reduce surprises in the future.
Feel free to download and explore the Excel below, and let me know if you find it useful.
Photo by Desola Lanre-Ologun on Unsplash
The crypto market is a wild place, and given how young the industry is and how I’m about 5 years into it, I can claim veteran status and opine somewhat authoritatively. I have...
Originally posted on the SureRemit Blog. About a year ago, I was in San Francisco and I needed to help pay my partner’s electricity bill in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Earlier, I needed...
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