{"id":2792,"date":"2012-11-12T18:11:53","date_gmt":"2012-11-13T01:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/financenewmexico.5e-dev.net\/?p=2792"},"modified":"2013-06-21T16:35:49","modified_gmt":"2013-06-21T22:35:49","slug":"wesst-offers-global-program-to-home-grown-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/articles\/general-business-advice\/wesst-offers-global-program-to-home-grown-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"WESST Offers Global Program to Home-Grown Businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"By

By Julianna Silva, Albuquerque Regional Manager, WESST<\/p><\/div>\n

WESST brings a global business initiative to New Mexico in a five-part series of workshops designed to empower small-business owners to make sound financial decisions.<\/p>\n

HP Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurs \u2014 or HP Life \u2014 is a global program sponsored by Hewlett Packard that trains the owners of microenterprises to apply information technology and business skills to establish and expand a job-creating venture.<\/p>\n

WESST sponsors the workshops at its Albuquerque Enterprise Center.<\/p>\n

Sessions cover the basics of finance, financial planning, invoicing, expense tracking and cash flow management. While the workshops empower participants with information about critical business tools, business owners should always verify accounting practices with an accountant who\u2019s familiar with their business.<\/p>\n

Fundamentals of finance:<\/strong> Break-even analysis is the most basic of financial basics. Without doing this analysis, a business owner can\u2019t know when the amount of money she\u2019s bringing in is equal to her costs. Determining this break-even point requires a list of variable costs associated with making the product and a list of fixed costs, such as rent or loan payments that need to be paid no matter how many products are made.\u00a0 By knowing this point, an entrepreneur will understand the minimum business activity that needs to occur in order to avoid losses.<\/p>\n

A plan with many parts:<\/strong> A financial plan is vital to any business venture. It includes an income \u2014 or profit and loss \u2014 statement, a balance sheet and a cash flow analysis. The income statement discloses a business\u2019s revenue and expenses over a specific period and shows whether it\u2019s making a profit or not. The balance sheet shows the assets, liabilities and net worth of a business at a given moment. And the cash flow statement shows how cash enters and exits a business; it lets an entrepreneur see whether the business generates more cash than it spends and helps the owner determine his long-term cash needs to cover all of the company\u2019s expenses and debt payments.<\/p>\n

Invoice essentials:<\/strong> An invoice does more than help a business owner collect payment from clients and customers. It records a sale, documents a salesperson\u2019s work, summarizes transactions for tax purposes and protects a business from claims that a product or service wasn\u2019t delivered. A spreadsheet program or accounting software can help a small-business owner save time and reduce errors in invoicing.<\/p>\n

Stalking expenses:<\/strong> \u00a0Keeping detailed track of expenses helps businesses meet legal and tax requirements, monitor spending and manage profitability.<\/p>\n

Cash flow management:<\/strong> Effectively managing cash flow allows a business to have revenue on hand when bills come due. Managing incoming and outgoing cash can include creating a pro forma \u2014 or projected \u2014 cash flow statement so a business owner can determine long-term cash needs and develop strategies for healthier cash balances.<\/p>\n

HP Life workshops are offered several times a year. For more information about WESST or workshop schedules, visit http:\/\/wesst.org\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Download Article\u00a0267_Wesst Offers Global Program for Home-Grown Entrepreneurs<\/a>\u00a0PDF<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WESST brings a global business initiative to New Mexico in a five-part series of workshops designed to empower small-business owners to make sound financial decisions. HP Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurs \u2014 or HP Life \u2014 is a global program sponsored … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2792"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2792"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2797,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2792\/revisions\/2797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}