Finance 101 Textbook
In 30 days, know 6 numbers about your own business, each traced to its source: weeks of cash, break-even revenue, gross profit on your 3 most common jobs, days to collect, your true hourly rate, and what a 5% price change does to your profit. Then pick 1 to move, with the arithmetic to move it.
Five layers. Start at the one the diagnostic gives you.
Everything in the Textbook
The 5-Layer Money Stack, the arithmetic behind each layer, and a workbook that does the math. Every number is yours: a round labelled example shows the method, then you run it on your own figures.
The chapters
- The Quick Win: 3 Numbers From the Source
- Why Money Feels Confusing
- The 5-Layer Money Stack
- Which Layer to Build at Your Size
- Layer 1, Cash
- Layer 2, Pricing as a Profit Lever
- Layer 3, Margins and Unit Economics
- Layer 4, Statements
- The Numbers That Lie
- Layer 5, Reserves, Tax and Owner Pay
- The 90-Day Money Build
- The Money Scorecard and the Metrics That Matter
- Worked Examples: 3 Composites and 1 That Went Wrong
- Common Mistakes
- The 30 and 90-Day Look-Back
- Proof: What Is and Is Not in This Book
SAMPLE · CHAPTER 1The Quick Win: 3 Numbers From the Source
You need 20 minutes, your bank login and your invoicing system. Nothing else.
Guess first. Before you look at anything, write down your guess for the cash in the business account, the money customers owe you, and how many weeks the business could run if no money came in. The gap between your guess and the count is the most useful thing on the page.
Then count, from the source. The bank, not the accounting software. Every unpaid invoice, with its date. Every bill due in the next 30 days.
Ending cash ÷ Average weekly outflows
DAYS TO COLLECT
Money owed to you ÷ Revenue for the month x 30
Today, your ending cash is your bank balance. For average weekly outflows, add up every dollar that left the business account over the last 12 weeks and divide by 12.
Owen Gallagher runs a hypothetical appliance repair business. Every number about him is round and made up. He guessed 5 weeks of cash. His bank shows $24,000 against $12,000 a week going out: 2 weeks. He guessed $20,000 owed to him. It is $40,000 on $60,000 of monthly revenue: 20 days to collect.
Each day of collection is worth 1 day of revenue. For Owen, $2,000. Collecting in 15 days instead of 20 would move $10,000 into his bank, once, without one more job.
No bands from us for "safe" or "fragile". A band from somebody else's business cannot know your season. This count is your day one. At 30 and 90 days you count again and compare.
INSIDEWhat the arithmetic looks like
What a 5% price change buys. With every other cost the same, the extra profit is revenue x 5%. On $60,000 a month with $5,000 of operating profit, that is $3,000, and profit moves 60%. The same arithmetic runs backwards on a cut.
How many customers a rise can lose. Jobs you can afford to lose = 1 - old contribution per job / new contribution per job. The same rule, in the same words, as the Pricing Calculator.
What a customer really costs. Ads, plus people's time on getting customers, plus software, plus referral rewards, divided by new customers. Then 30-day gross profit against that cost, and the month the customer pays you back.
Why the bank fell in a month you made a profit. The profit-to-cash bridge walks net profit to the change in your bank balance, line by line, with an "unexplained" line for your bookkeeper.
FAQQuestions owners ask
Does it tell me how many months of cash I should hold?
No. It shows you how to size a reserve from your own biggest fall in the last 24 months. A borrowed figure cannot know your season.
Will it tell me what percentage to set aside for tax?
No. That number comes from your CPA. The book gives you the question to ask, the dated federal estimated tax calendar, and a worksheet to hold the answer.
Does it teach me how to set my prices?
No. The Pricing Calculator does that. This book teaches what a price change does to profit and how many customers it can afford to lose, using the same formulas.
Is there a 13-week forecast in it?
One page on why it matters, then a pointer. The full method and its spreadsheet are in the Cash Flow Forecasting Template, with the same definitions of starting cash and weeks of cash.
Are the examples real businesses?
No. The 4 owners are labelled composites with round numbers, built to show decisions. One of them goes wrong on purpose. There are no client results in the book because we do not publish client results.
Do This Today
Write your guess for your weeks of cash. Then open the bank, add up the last 12 weeks of money out, divide by 12, and divide your balance by that. Write the answer, the date and the source next to your guess.
Read it in your library.
This is included with The Standard, along with every other guide in the library. Your monthly re-audit tells you which one to open next. $497 to start, $297/mo to keep it running. Cancel any month and keep everything.
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