Cash Flow Secrets: How to Keep Your Business Thriving with Jakob Kirschner

Freddy D: 00:01:39

Today's guest is Jakob Kirschner, the founder of Peak Advisory, where he helps small blue collar businesses with 2 million or more in annual revenue build financially healthy and sustainable operations.

Jakob provides fractional CFO services tailored specifically to growing businesses, drawing from his extensive experience as a corporate controller for large international manufacturing companies. Originally from Germany, Jakob holds a BA in Finance, Accounting and Taxation from the University of Applied Science in Heilbronn.

His career has taken him around the globe from Brazil to China, South Korea to Mexico and across Europe, giving him deep insights into navigating different accounting systems, tax regulation and cultural landscapes. With early hands on experience in construction, he brings practical, grounded approach to advising business owners.

Jakob is also a trained life coach, uniquely blending financial strategy with personal development coaching to help business owners grow not just their companies, but themselves.

ter relocating to Colorado in: 2023

Freddy D: 00:03:03

Welcome Jakob from Peak Advisory to the Business Superfans podcast show. How are you this afternoon, Jakob?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:03:10

I'm excellent, thank you.

Freddy D: 00:03:12

Yeah, we're excited to have you on the show. So tell me a little bit of background on how did you create or come about Peak Advisory? What's the story behind all that Peak Advisory?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:03:23

First of all, we are offering fractional CFO services so we help business owners make sense out of their numbers. As a young guy I did all sorts of different odd jobs and construction, manufacturing, all sorts of stuff.

And then once I got kids I got more serious about life and got my degree in finance and I worked for international manufacturing companies for a long time and eventually decided I want to start my own business to increase my reach. Because if I work for a big company, I have a handful of local CEOs that I can advise and make their lives better in a business sense.

But now being on my own, I just get to talk to a lot more people and help them get better with their finances.

Freddy D: 00:04:02

And finances is important, especially in small to mid sized businesses because a lot of times they're started by an individual or a husband and wife team and that's not their specialty. Their specialty is doing the business and the books or are like a sub thought it's not the primary focus.

Look, we still have money in the bank, so business is good and in reality it may not be good.

And that's where your services as a fractional CFO can come in and say, well yeah, you have money in the bank but you've been losing money for the last five months.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:04:39

Absolutely. It could be the other way around too. Like my CPA says I'm making money, but why don't I have any money in the bank?

Freddy D: 00:04:45

Right. How do you work with the customer?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:04:48

So the bookkeeper records the numbers. So you know what happened in the past. And then the question is, what do you do with your numbers?

You get a P and L from your bookkeeper, you look at it, you don't really know what it says and you kind of put it to the side and just keep on doing what you always do. Like you do your business decision by gut feeling. What I do is different. I'm trained to look at financial data and analyze it.

And I look at the financials, I look for two, three things that are important for the business owners to focus on in the next month or two months or three months. We have monthly calls where we just go through the numbers.

And a big part of what I do is a cash flow forecast where you can try out different business decisions. For example, can I hire a new project manager? Or what happens if I double my revenue?

What effect does it have on different other positions like accounts receivables or my inventory and stuff? So we go through those different thought processes and make sure that you can make good data based decisions.

Freddy D: 00:05:49

No, that's very important because I recently worked with a company and I had a business coach and he worked with. There was a husband and wife that owned the company and they had the mindset, hey, we have money in the bank.

We had some positive net income all as well. But they really couldn't read a financial statement. And this business coach kept reiterating on them. Okay, really? And this is how you read it?

And it just wasn't registering. Unfortunately the husband passed away and I ended up taking over the company.

What I ended up doing was hiring an HR company that also provided CFO services. We took a look at the financials and they were a mess. They had tons of outstanding past due invoices that were making the numbers look bad.

And these were like two, three year old. They're never going to collect on it, get rid of it, write it off. Because it just makes the books look bad. And how often do you run into that?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:06:45

It's very common, the bad data quality. It depends who's doing the bookkeeping.

And for smaller companies, oftentimes it's the wife or the office manager or grandma and they don't have any like good training on how to keep solid good books.

So you end up Having data that's not very reliable, that as you mentioned in your example, you have receivables on the books that there's no way that you can ever collect them, stuff like this. And it just leads to wrong decisions and they could be potentially fatal for your business because it looks like you've.

Freddy D: 00:07:16

Got money that's outstanding, but it's really artificial money because you're not, like we just said, you're never going to collect it. So that get needs to be removed.

And all of a sudden you find out, whoa, my cash flow isn't what I thought it was because it just changed by a hundred thousand dollars because that debt is never coming in.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:07:36

Exactly. Or you have money in the bank account, you think I'm doing great, but you forgot about that tax bill, for example, that's due.

And then all of a sudden you find yourself in a pinch because you can't pay it right away. And.

Freddy D: 00:07:48

Yeah. So share with me, what's the process that you do to help analyze that business and define where they're at and where they need to go?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:07:57

Well, first of all, in the discovery call I ask a lot of questions because I want to learn about the business.

I want to learn about what's their goals, both in business and ideally I find out about their personal goals as well because they're deeply connected. If they're not aligned, then that's not a good idea.

After the initial call where we just get to know each other and I learn about the business, then I get all the financial data and then I just analyze, we look at different ratios and we just see where's the most urgent area that we need to improve on and what's the low hanging fruits. Just to get at this initial aha moment that there is a value in what we do and then we develop a midterm to long term strategy.

How can you grow your business? How can you scale and do it in a healthy way?

Freddy D: 00:08:40

And that's important to really plan out that strategy.

Because one of the things that I did with this particular company was that we looked at where things were at and once we got some of the books cleaned up and realized one, we didn't have a positive net income, it was actually negative income. But we set a goal and then we got everybody involved in the company.

So since I was running it, I didn't play that we're keeping everything a secret, I shared it with the team. This is where we're at, this is where we want to go. And we need to get everybody on the Same page, so that we can hit that goal.

How important is that for especially a small business to get the team involved into the direction of the company?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:09:23

It's absolutely important. If you're the boss and you make a decision, you want to do this and this, your team is not pulling the card with you, then you're not going anywhere.

You're relying on your team to have the same ideas that you have. And it's all about motivation.

If you get a way to motivate your team to reach that certain goal, like increase your gross margin, then it's possible to do it.

Freddy D: 00:09:44

How important is it to, for example, tweaking with this particular company I'm talking about, we did a $5 increase to the hourly rate that we were charging for the service. $5 in today's money is little. But how important is that $5 multiplied times many numbers?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:10:04

Making a business better is really about a lot of incremental steps. And you say $5 sounds very small, but as you say, with the hours that you work with, the number of customers that you have, it's makes a huge impact.

And even increasing your gross margin by 1% has a big impact on your bottom line. So anything that can make your numbers better, you need to look at it and work on it.

Freddy D: 00:10:27

Right?

So can you share a story of how you worked with one company that was kind of a financial mess, and how did you turn that around and where are they today?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:10:37

Yeah, I mean, it's common, for example, this guy, that he's all about revenue. Like, he brags about doubling his revenue, but he never talks about profit. And when you dig deeper, he doesn't have any proper books.

He doesn't even know, like, what are his costs, what are his margins? When we work together, then first of all, it's education. Why do you need to know your gross margin?

Why do you need to know how much do you have to sell in order to make a profit?

Just getting projects for the sake of having work and paying the guys, as he said, that's not a good idea because if you're losing money on the projects, you might as well not do anything. You might be better off not taking on the projects that you lose money on. But. But how can you tell if you don't know your numbers?

So it was really about implementing a good bookkeeping process. So he has actual good numbers and educating him on how margins work.

And so he gets to a point where he actually knows how much he has to sell in order to have a net profit, a positive net Profit part of the strategy was not bidding on those jobs with a low margin, but rather do smaller jobs with higher margins.

Freddy D: 00:11:40

And so how did that transform that business?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:11:42

Well, eventually making some profit still on the way to get better. Yeah, it's small steps, and depending on where you're at, sometimes it's big improvements, sometimes it's a whole bunch of little improvements.

Freddy D: 00:11:53

So has he kind of changed his mindset about talking about the big revenue versus the big net income?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:12:00

I hope. I hope. Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:12:01

So let's talk about going into forensically. I mean, I'm sure you've gone into some books forensically to take a look at trying to figure out what's. What's going on.

Because like with this particular company that I mentioned, they had things improperly classified. And so the CFO that worked on that project had to really go in and recategorize a multitude of things.

How important is it to really for businesses to properly categorize this stuff from the first place?

And second part of that question is that they probably should reach out to somebody like yourself to get the advice on how to structure their books in the first place versus afterwards.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:12:44

Yeah, that's a very good point. If you structure it incorrectly, you don't see the numbers that you need to see. Like the gross margin, for example.

If you have stuff in your cost of goods sold that are actually overhead, then you have incorrect information about what's your margin. Usually bookkeepers should be educated on how to classify different types of expenses.

We go through the books and we look for items that are in the wrong place and then make sure that they get reclassified to the right place.

Freddy D: 00:13:12

And how many times you find that that is an issue with the customers that you work with?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:13:16

It's pretty common, actually.

Freddy D: 00:13:18

And why do you think that is? Just a lack of understanding or good question.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:13:22

I mean. Yeah, lack of understanding. And also bad bookkeepers.

Oftentimes, if they're not proper bookkeepers, but office manager, as we mentioned, then it's just they try to do it as best as they can and quality suffers from that.

Freddy D: 00:13:38

Yeah, because some of the companies like, say, I've worked with, that was one of the things that we were shocked at that one.

Once we got a CFO like yourself to go in and start digging in, they found out that 10, 20, $30,000 was inappropriately cataloged, and that completely changed the dynamics of the company, the financial outlook of the company. And in some cases, it can either go put a company into the negative because it's improperly categorized as well.

As it can flip it around and go, wow, you thought you had negative income, when in reality you have significant positive income. It's just things were improperly categorized.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:14:16

A common mistake is you want to have the expenses and the matching revenue in the same period. If you don't record it properly, then you have an up and down in your profits and you don't really know what's happening.

You start losing trust in your reports and it's really an issue about properly matching your expenses to the revenue.

Freddy D: 00:14:35

Yeah, because that was exactly what happened in this company.

They would invoice in this month, but then they would collect the money in the next month and it wouldn't cancel itself out, which is what you just talked about. And so the numbers are skewed and it's artificial. Let's talk about the importance of tracking, invoicing and collections.

Because especially a lot of small businesses, they let things get out of hand and all of a sudden you find out that you've got outstanding invoices for 120 days. What can a small to mid sized business do to minimize that situation? Because it's a common situation. I'm sure you've seen it numerous times.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:15:17

Yeah, I mean you really have to keep track with your, with collections and I think sometimes you're not aware that it really costs you money. You're being a bank to your clients by not collecting.

And I mean once you start a job, you have expenses for the materials, for your people, for the hours, then you do the job and you need to have the money to have the business running. But if you're sluggish on getting the money back from your customer back into the company, then you actually have to finance your operation expenses.

The operations. Yeah. So it's really important to keep track on that.

Freddy D: 00:15:48

What are some approaches that a business can use to improve their collections if they got themselves into that situation?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:15:56

I mean first of all, just be on time. As soon as your customer is late, send them a message and don't wait.

Like have a process in place that every week you send out notifications to your customers that are late and start picking up the phone and calling them to make sure that they pay well.

Freddy D: 00:16:13

There's an old school method is actually pick up the telephone and make a phone call.

It's amazing how that's one of the things that we implemented in the company I'm talking about was I got the company accountant to make an old school phone call and if you weren't getting results, go up higher level to whoever was in charge of the financial department and explain the situation.

And most often we ended up getting a resolution pretty quickly because the person in charge of that whole financial department, especially in dealing with some large companies and we just said this is going to affect services, we're just going to have to shut off services because we can't keep going on. And as you said, we can't be your bank. And we got some first turnaround, but it was a phone call, emails were being ignored.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:17:05

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, depends on what kind of business you have and if there's repeat services then Absolutely, yeah.

Put a freeze on your services and try to go as high up as possible and just make sure that the person understands there's going to be no business unless you pay. And I mean for like more like construction companies where you have bigger projects.

I just, I really think it's important to have contracts in place that give you initial down payment and payments on the road to completion. And so you're not sitting on the whole big amount in case something goes wrong.

Freddy D: 00:17:35

Yeah, absolutely. You know, you need progress payments is. Would be the approach because.

And then the same thing with what we did is we didn't flat out terminate the services, but we indicated that if we didn't receive some kind of results within this window, then we would have to terminate. So we gave them an option to make things correct or right, I should say.

Freddy D: 00:17:55

And they did.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:17:56

So giving options is a good strategy.

Freddy D: 00:17:58

Well, one of the things I did years ago speaking of construction, I was selling construction management software and what I did for to improve cash flow was I created a quote order form. So put on the quote and then the CFO would have to sign off and then we had the ability to pay via credit card.

But in a small little box I put in, if you paid in full, got a 5% discount, didn't advertise it, didn't say anything about it, but every order that we got that got paid by credit card, that CFO checked off the 5% off. How is that for an idea of improving company's cash flow?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:18:42

Yeah, I mean it's a great idea. That's something we can do also in the cash flow forecast to see like how would that decision affect our bottom line.

Like it will definitely decrease our cash conversion cycle. So we have the cash flow when we really need it.

But depending on the goals, if you're focused more on improving our margin, our profit, then you'd have to think about it if that's the right strategy. But if you're, if you're in need of cash and you need it urgently, then it's definitely a great strategy.

Freddy D: 00:19:10

Yeah. Because it's much cheaper than getting a loan.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:19:14

Absolutely, yeah.

Freddy D: 00:19:14

One of those loans that covers cash flow or what is. I mean, those things are pretty dangerous, getting a loan out against outstanding invoices. They're not, they seem cheap, but they're not cheap.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:19:27

Yeah, that's true.

Freddy D: 00:19:29

And it's cheaper to give the 5% off or 2 and a half percent or whatever it is, because then it's cheap money and you got, you solve your cash flow crunch. So tell me a little bit more about the range of services that you provide.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:19:41

I offer the CFO services. I don't really offer bookkeeping and accounting. There are specialists for that. But the CFO services, what we do is we have monthly strategy meetings.

I have a CFO report, I call it, and there's the different financial reports. And then of course the cash flow forecast where we just play with the numbers, we talk about different goals.

For example, as I mentioned before, hiring a new project manager. How would that affect our financials, our profit, and when would be a good time to hire him? We want to buy new machinery, maybe a new truck.

Would it be wiser to finance it or pay cash with it? Depending on what the analysis brings to light, like where's the weak points, where's the risk in the business? Then we start improving in that area.

Freddy D: 00:20:26

And that's an important thing that you bring up there, Jacob, is because a lot of people just willy nilly make a decision, oh, we need a new vehicle, let's just go buy one. And they don't take the time to just like you describe, how's that going to affect the business overall or hiring that, that individual?

And it might be that it was necessary, but the timing could have waited 90 days.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:20:53

Yeah, I mean it's absolutely vital. I focus on four main metrics in the business. Gross profit, net profit, the profit margin, and cash.

It's important that a business owner learns to think about how every decision that he makes in the business affects those four metrics.

And once he got that down and things in those terms, then he's in a much better place with his business than if he just sees a new truck and likes it and looks at the bank account and says, okay, I have enough cash, and then just goes and buys it.

Freddy D: 00:21:23

Yeah, that can have a really profound negative impact because all of a sudden you got a cash flow crunch. You know, you're expecting an invoice to get paid and it gets delayed for whatever reason and you burn the cash to buy the new truck, you have.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:21:39

A problem, can't bring the truck back like that.

Freddy D: 00:21:42

And let's talk about a little bit about planning, because I don't think a lot of businesses plan their financials, they plan their marketing, they plan the project, they spend time on that.

But I don't think a lot of businesses spend, especially the really small businesses, I should say mid sized businesses probably got their act together. But a really small business, a home improvement kind of a business, they're not going to be looking at that kind of stuff.

They don't have the time to do it because they're too busy working on a project. They're not looking at all that stuff.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:22:13

They should though. I mean, it's just like in personal life, if you want to grow, then you need to set goals and they should be written down.

And the same is true for your company. If you want to grow your company, if you want to increase profit, you have to think about this.

You have to make goals, you have to write them down, you have to make a plan. How do I want to reach the goal? Like just by increasing revenue.

And in the end you realize, well, I doubled my revenue, but my profit is pretty much the same as before because I have more costs and the costs increase above average. And so if you want to get somewhere, then you have to have a plan.

Freddy D: 00:22:48

And that's where you come in, is you actually help them with the strategy of putting together the plan and looking at, okay, the what ifs, what if you decide to do this, what if to do this, how does this impact what's the right decision versus being proactive? And they're always wondering why they don't have any money and why they're not growing.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:23:07

Yeah, if you're reactionary, then the other way around, you want to plan for where you want to be and you want to hire the right people to achieve your goals and not the other way around that you think, okay, once I get to a certain reven level, then I want to have a project manager.

But on the other hand, if you want to get those big contracts, then you have to think about, okay, what kind of people do I need to get those contracts, what kind of people do I need to deliver on my promises and what resources do I need in the business?

Then you have a plan you can do step by step and then you're ready when the big contract comes and then you can actually hit a home run and not get self destructed by taking on a project that's way too big for your processes and where you're at with your company, right.

Freddy D: 00:23:50

And that's where you come in.

And that's where you can create, start creating super fans is you help that business put together their plan, look at their financials, and once that comes to fruition and they've got growth, they've got a positive net income and things like that, that's where they become a super fan of your services because you've transformed the that company.

Just like you talked before, the guy before, about all, he talked about how wonderful his revenue was, but his net income wasn't nowhere near as wonderful. He's got to be a super fan of you that you've now transformed his outlook.

And now he's looking at things from a different perspective than he originally was. I've had to as being a sales guy. That's why I had the coach hit me on the head numerous times because this look, I just grew about another $250,000.

He goes, yeah, but look at your bottom line. It didn't grow. And I was like, oh yeah, got forgot about that little thing.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:24:45

And the bottom line is where the impact is for your family, for your community, and that's really what makes a difference.

Freddy D: 00:24:52

And that's where we made the minuscule five dollar increase. And I solved the net income situation because all of a sudden it popped right up.

And you know, when we got pushback is now, wait a minute, we're used to paying this price and you know what caused this change? It says, well, inflation, some changes, we haven't changed the price. So this is a minuscule $5.

When I gave him that simple explanation, I got zero pushback. It was like, oh, okay, that makes sense. Great, no problem. Thank you. Just wanted to make sure you understand.

And it's sometimes the little things are the big things.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:25:28

Absolutely.

Freddy D: 00:25:29

You change something by a half a percent margin, nobody really notices it.

But you notice it because when you play with the numbers, all of a sudden you go, okay, that half a percent that added this big pile of cash that we didn't have. And nobody has an issue with a 0.5% increase.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:25:48

Go to your biggest supplier and have a negotiation about the price. If you can just get a little better terms than you used to have, that also makes a big effect on your bottom line.

Freddy D: 00:25:57

Yeah, that's an important tip, is to go back. And I think businesses should always revisit dealing with suppliers or distributors, revisit both of those agreements. Because things change.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:26:07

When you start off, you don't have good cards to get really good deals. But once you grow and you order more, then it's absolutely valid to go back and say, hey, I'm becoming a better customer.

And let's talk about those terms again.

Freddy D: 00:26:18

Yeah, it's likewise if you got a distributor where they're marketing your product and so you're the supplier to them. Software world that set up resellers around the world.

But the ones that were really performing, they got a better margin because they were selling more. And the guys that weren't selling so much, the margin wasn't as gracious because it was all about the volume.

What are some of the other pitfalls that you find that people have a tendency to do in their small business or should be doing that they don't pay attention to financially?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:26:52

We touched on it already. Data quality is such a big issue that you really have the right people in the right seat.

And once you grow, like, you have to take those difficult decisions and maybe replace someone who's the wrong person for the seat and get a really good bookkeeper, for example, because you need to have that good data. You have to have good data. Another thing you've touched on cash, like not having a cash flow forecast. That's definitely a huge thing.

You have to have a good forecast.

Freddy D: 00:27:19

How often should somebody be looking at their numbers? I mean, weekly, monthly, bi, monthly?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:27:25

I'd say it really depends on the situation of your business. When you're in a very bad position and you really wonder, can I make today, can I make tomorrow?

Then you should have a daily forecast and look daily at the forecast and just make sure that you're up to date at today I have to pay or tomorrow I have to pay this guy.

I don't have the cash yet, so I definitely should go to my customer with the overdue invoice to make sure that he pays today so I can pay my supplier tomorrow so I can get more supplies. If you're in better shape, then a weekly forecast is good.

And for a good solid company, monthly forecast and monthly looking at the forecast is totally fine. It should become a habit that you're like, just look at the forecast every month. Monthly makes sense because your expenses, a lot of it is monthly.

Your, your expenses are not the same every week. Some things get booked on the first of the month, like insurance money or stuff like that.

So it makes sense to have a monthly rhythm for updating the forecast and looking at the forecast as well.

Freddy D: 00:28:24

That's good advice because a lot of businesses don't do any of that. They look all of a sudden, wait a minute, how come I don't have any money?

And then they take a look at what's going on and this is something I've used and tell me if it's a good strategy or not. Is. But some outstanding invoices I've reached out.

For example, in the one company I was talking about, my accountant reached on Connected and then I stepped in and kind of just told him that, all right, give these guys 5% off if they pay today because it's already 60 days past due and we got people to bite on that.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:28:55

I mean, you gotta look at your options and if somebody's not paying, that might be a good idea to just offer a little discount if they pay now, what are the options? You go to small court and a legal fee and you sell your receivable to a company. But then you also get only part of the money that's owed to you.

So yeah, you gotta look at the options. And I think it's a good idea.

Freddy D: 00:29:15

Yeah, we got paid right then and there. It's good for during the phone call. That's one of the things I said, this option is good. Now conversation ends, it's off the table.

And most of the time I found that people take that.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:29:27

Yeah, I mean, you just have to put on some pressure because that person is in the same situation as you are. He's just going to pay the most urgent one and you just have to make sure that from his perspective, you're the most urgent supplier to pay.

Freddy D: 00:29:40

Right. So how important is using good software to track your accounting?

Because I think there's still some people out there that are still doing it on pencil and paper and then there's some people that are using older technology. And what's your take on some of this new technology and do you see AI playing a part into any of that?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:30:00

Well, AI. Good question. QuickBooks Online, very common. Yeah, it uses AI when you pull the data from the bank to classify which kind of expense.

But my experience is it's usually not very good. It does very weird matching. So you always have to check it at this point. But yeah, having good software is definitely a big thing.

And if you're a small company, then QuickBooks Online is probably a good idea. But once you grow and if you depending on how complex your operations are, there's definitely better options out there than QuickBooks Online.

And I think it's a bit of a trade off like costs versus benefit, but it definitely pays to look into technology what is out there to make my life easier, to make me more productive and more efficient. So yeah, definitely, yeah.

Freddy D: 00:30:46

Because in a software you can have reports generated automatically.

So second of all, as you just said, some things does automatically catalog stuff, but if you don't know how it's being cataloged, you can end up having a mess to clean up down the road where if they get somebody like you to help out, you can still help, maybe automate it, but you can correct the automation and retrain the software so that every time this type of thing comes in it properly classified because you trained a software to classify it appropriately.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:31:20

But I'm still a big fan of manual control. Like it's good to have AI or like that kind of software help at this point.

I don't think it replaces the human oversight to make sure that everything is correct the way it's supposed to be.

Freddy D: 00:31:32

Oh, it's not going to.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:31:33

For example, like in QuickBooks Online, they have all those nice dashboards that tell you, okay, this is your cash flow coming in and that's based on data that you have in the system, like payment terms and stuff. But you as the owner, you know your customers and you know about this one guy that always pays two weeks late.

So if you have a proper cash flow forecast, then you need to add these kind of information into the model to make sure you have an accurate forecast. And that's something the system doesn't really know.

Freddy D: 00:32:00

And that's where you come in to really help prepare the proper forecast before you take what QuickBooks has given you and then you factor in real world information and then so it streamlines your time a little bit. But at the same time, now you're taking the data. Now the business owner has accurate forecast and financials.

As we kind of wrap up here, Jacob, what's the biggest takeaway that a small business owner can take from here that they should look at and implement in their business?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:32:33

I say one of the most important thing is that you recognize how important it is to have good financial data. And I mean a lot of people, you kind of know it, you have to, you should have it, but it's not on your mind. You focus on other things.

But just recognizing it is important and spending money on it to have a good solid setup, it's a necessary evil. It's just like insurance for a car. You don't really hope to need it, but you still do it anyways. And with accounting, it's a necessary evil.

Nobody is excited about accounting, but you need to invest in Having good data, good people. Yeah. Just start with having a good accurate bookkeeping and that's the first step towards better financial data for your company.

Freddy D: 00:33:15

And you can work with businesses virtually.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:33:17

Absolutely. And then yeah, if you want to go to the next step and to actually make sense out of your numbers, that's when you can work with people like me.

Take your business to the next level.

Freddy D: 00:33:27

Great. Jacob, it's been a pleasure having you on the Business Superfan podcast show. How can people find you?

Jakob Kirschner: 00:33:32

Best way would be on my website, Peak Advisory Us. There's a contact form so you can get in touch with me and book a discovery call and we talked before the show.

Freddy D: 00:33:42

You've got offering discovery call, right. For no cost for the listeners.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:33:46

I mean regular discovery call is free, but I would offer a 30 minute consultation where we can just go over your questions and then see how it could help you.

Freddy D: 00:33:56

Okay. Jakob, thank you so much for your time.

Great conversation, some great insights for our listeners and small to mid sized business owners and the importance of their financials and we look forward to having you on the show again down the road.

Jakob Kirschner: 00:34:09

Thank you so much.

Freddy D: 00:34:12

Hey superfans superstar.

Freddy D: 00:34:14

What a powerful conversation with Jakob Kirschner today. Before we wrap, here's your three a playbook to attract ideal clients, advocate with champions and accelerate sustainable growth.

Number one, fix your financial foundation. Messy books destroy momentum and blur your growth potential. Solid financial data isn't optional. It's your launchpad to scale with confidence.

So here's your action step. Audit your current bookkeeping and immediately hire a pro to clean and structure your financials for clarity. Number two, cash flow is king.

Forecast it. Hope isn't a cash strategy. Forecasting is real time cash flow visibility lets you lead boldly instead of react blindly. So here's your action step.

Immediately implement a 12 week rolling cash flow forecast and review it monthly to stay ahead of financial crunches. Want a full breakdown? Grab the show notes and start putting it in play today.