{"id":273,"date":"2022-03-25T21:14:18","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T20:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/startfinance-now.com\/early-stage-finance-made-easy\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T03:14:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T02:14:32","slug":"early-stage-finance-made-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/startfinance-now.com\/en\/early-stage-finance-made-easy\/","title":{"rendered":"Early-stage finance made easy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Have you been managing your working capital and cash flow right? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/aravindgopalan\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><u>Aravind Gopalan <\/u><\/a>from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.growfin.ai\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><u>Growfin<\/u><\/a> asked me a lot about this topic and I enjoyed our conversation about my mission to help early-stage startups ace their accounting and finance woes. In this episode, I share how managing your working capital and cash flow, and maintaining good accounting hygiene can help your startup increase its chances of survival.<\/p>\n<p>Scroll down and tune in to listen to some great insights on finance and accounting on<a href=\"https:\/\/www.growfin.ai\/the-casheroes\/early-stage-finance-made-easy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><u> The Cashheroes!<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Intro <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/janaludwig\/\">Jana Ludwig-Martyushev<\/a>, ex-VP Finance at Omni:us, which specializes in AI products for the insurance market. Currently, Jana is on her mission to help startups survive. At Start Finance Now, she invented a toolbox for start-ups, freelancers and small businesses. She also helps women become financially independent.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Key Takeaways<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Advice to Founders: If you know what is booked, have a look at your profit and loss statement and understand what\u2019s behind, you will feel more confident when you talk to investors, tax authorities etc. Does not matter if you do a loss, but know why you are doing a loss.<\/li>\n<li>Advice for female employees: Don\u2019t hesitate to negotiate and get what you think you deserve.<\/li>\n<li>If you don\u2019t have good accounting hygiene, you could ruin your company<\/li>\n<li>A good financial knowledge can help a founder and his\/her startup survive better<\/li>\n<li>Make your sales team understand how important their valid opinion (sales forecast) is.<\/li>\n<li>Advice to Finance Execs: Get your processes right before getting a tool in place.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Managing Working Capital Management &amp; Cashflow<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h4>Importance for startups to manage Working Capital Management &amp; Cashflow:<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Knowing your runway and when your last cent used are essential<\/li>\n<li>Everything starts from having a good financial plan<\/li>\n<li>Applies to startup of all sizes and stages<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Maintaining a good Accounting hygiene<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Must have in order to make right decisions, create reports and do calculations<\/li>\n<li>Set-up a good Account plan<\/li>\n<li>Think about the cost center plan<\/li>\n<li>Have clear guidelines for accounting and pre-accounting (even if outsourced)<\/li>\n<li>Set up an approval process for incoming invoices<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Have good Financial plan (in other words, Budget or a Business Plan)<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Know what sales are coming in and expenses (basically cash inflow and outflow)<\/li>\n<li>Track the above on a monthly basis<\/li>\n<li>Know your burn rate and track it every month<\/li>\n<li>Compare your financial plan with the actuals<\/li>\n<li>This is where your accounting hygiene and financial plan go together<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What you need to do from Day One<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Make sure your team members and other departments are knowing what\u2019s exactly happening in your company<\/li>\n<li>Conduct weekly sales meeting to know what\u2019s there in the sales pipeline, when are sales coming in<\/li>\n<li>Have a sales forecast every week<\/li>\n<li>Make you sales team clear about the payment terms<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>How can you go about setting up your AR process?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Do a weekly or bi-weekly checkup<\/li>\n<li>Are your customers paying in time? If the customers are not clear with the due dates, something is wrong with your accounting hygiene<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s not always the customers fault. Make sure everything is right on your side, before following up with the customer for payment due<\/li>\n<li>Ask yourself how you help your customers pay you on time. For example: Does the customer  have a longer approval process? Should I have to send the invoices much prior?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>How can you go about setting up your AP process?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Do you have a good approval process?<\/li>\n<li>Are you only paying invoices for the services you use?<\/li>\n<li>Do you really pay the invoice just once? (Bad accounting hygiene could leave you paying the invoice 2 or more times)<\/li>\n<li>Are the payment terms you have with your suppliers in line with that of your customers? (For example: If your customers pay you after 60 days, but you pay your suppliers after 30 days, there is an issue here)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u200d<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Rapid Fire with Jana<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>\u200d<\/p>\n<p><strong>When do you start and end your workday?<\/strong>\u200d<\/p>\n<p>Start at 9 am. Pause at 4 pm. And continue later at night.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How much sleep do you get?<\/strong>\u200d<\/p>\n<p>7 hours \u200d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Podcast\/Book suggestion for people joining fast-growing startups<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cCFO Yeah!\u201d podcast for finance folks<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEssentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less\u201d by Greg McKeown (teaches how you can do more with less)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Apart from core finance skills, what is the additional skill that a Finance Member can learn which will help them during the early fast-growing startup phase?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Meditate and have a calm mind<\/p>\n<p><strong>Something that you would do differently or take a different call during your personal or professional life if given a magical wish?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u200dWould focus more on my inner growth. Would not work 15 hrs a day like I used to.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=u1R8JGcm3SQ\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=u1R8JGcm3SQ<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you been managing your working capital and cash flow right? Aravind Gopalan from Growfin asked me a lot about this topic and I enjoyed our conversation about my mission to help early-stage startups ace their accounting and finance woes. In this episode, I share <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/startfinance-now.com\/en\/early-stage-finance-made-easy\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Early-stage finance made easy - Start Finance Now<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/startfinance-now.com\/early-stage-finance-made-easy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Early-stage finance made easy - Start Finance Now\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Have you been managing your working capital and cash flow right? 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