Understanding Your Financial Statements

Understanding your small business’s financial performance is fundamental to knowing if the business is meeting your financial goals or if changes are needed in the way you do business. We’ll use realistic sample financial statements to illustrate the concepts we are discussing. Participants are also encouraged to bring their existing financial information to discuss or evaluate in class.

During the workshop, we’ll focus on the following:

• Accounting systems – we’ll help you identify the benefits of timely and accurate financial information and how a system can be put in place.
• Basic financial statements – we’ll identify the basic financial statements that are common to all businesses and what they mean.
• Interpreting financial information – we’ll guide you through the process, including setting benchmarks for business performance.

Making key business decision – you’ll learn how to use financial information to make key business decisions such as when to hire additional employees, when to adjust pricing, or how to reduce excess costs.

Learn from an expert

Erich Peter
Director of Training and Technical Assistance

Erich brings a unique blend of corporate and small business experience to his position at UCEDC.  He began his career in the public accounting industry, working with a wide variety of businesses and then went  on to hold various management and financial roles in the energy industry.

Having built a solid foundation of business acumen, Erich then took the entrepreneurial plunge as the owner/operator of a printing company.  After a successful six-year tenure, Erich sold the business and joined the UCEDC team in his current role.

With his real-world appreciation of the challenges that small business entrepreneurs face, Erich brings the right combination of theory and practice to his training events.