Thomas Cutler


The aPriori cost management platform uses innovative, patent protected technologies, and is capable of using design information driven off of MCAD geometry. Additionally the ability to model production facilities (including machine capabilities, raw materials, and facility cost structure) and the specific cost accounting methodologies, accurate predictive, allow “forward looking” real time cost estimates.

The firm anticipates huge staff growth for the remainder of 2006. The firm is presently looking to add Implementation Engineers. An Implementation Engineer is a key member in an implementation team that delivers the aPriori cost management platform to a customer and assists the customer, driving quantifiable value in their organization. Implementation Engineers are responsible for data gathering, training, configuring the solution, and helping drive system adoption. A critical component of solution configuration is building virtual production environments (VPEs), which are models of a customer’s manufacturing facilities. These VPEs allow customers to assess, control, and reduce its product costs from the beginning of and throughout product development cycles.

Implementations are typically short-term engagements lasting twelve weeks and require a combination of working at the customer facility and at aPriori’s Concord office. 40 to 60% travel is required.

Additionally, Implementation Engineers may help during the sales process in the delivery of aPriori strategic value assessments (aSVAs), which allow prospects to confirm the financial and strategic value that aPriori can bring them prior to engaging in a full solution rollout.

Primary responsibilities:

•

Gathers factory and accounting data required to configure solution and build customer VPEs. Educates customer on data requirements, helps customer project champion and project manager identify data providers, provides data gathering methodology and templates to customer, and supports the process.

• Models a customer’s internal manufacturing facilities and those of its suppliers in aPriori.

• Trains users and administrators on the use of aPriori.

• Drives integration requirements with systems and processes.

• Develops a maintenance plan with customer to ensure data and solution are kept up-to-date.

• Advocates for additional requirements that are necessary or helpful for customers to successfully use and get benefit from aPriori, and works with Product Management to influence future releases.

• Works with customer to define how aPriori will fit into customers costing process.

• Provides support to users during initial use of the solution.

• Supports developing the results story to demonstrate solution ROI.

aPriori’s Cost Management Software Platform enables manufacturers to better understand product cost decisions early and throughout the product lifecycle. aPriori’s Cost Management Platform empowers manufacturers to lower cost-of-goods sold (COGS), provides real-time visibility to “cost-critical” decision information, and builds critical cost knowledge to go on the business “offensive.” aPriori’s patent-protected cost management platform allows companies to assess, control, and reduce cost of goods sold by whole percentages. The aPriori Platform truly enables “Cost Knowledge Before it Matters.”

“aPriori has customers in a variety of industries including High Technology, Industrial Equipment, Automotive, and Heavy Machinery. Recent customers include John Deere, Panasonic, Thomas & Betts, Flextronics, JLG, and Dana Corporation.”

Emlyn Scott


Financial Statements Introduction:

Financial statements generally take the form of records of the financial performance of a business. They provide information about the profitability and general financial health of the organisation. A company’s financial records usually consist of:

* Income Statement

* Balance Sheet

* Cash Flow Statement

An income statement, also called a Profit and Loss Statement, shows how a company’s sales or revenue translate into profit (net income) over a specific period (normally one year). It’s a record of how much a company has earned, what expenses it has paid and the resulting profit or loss.

A balance sheet, also known as a statement of financial position, is a summary of what an entity is worth at a particular point in time. It summarizes what a business owns (its assets), what it owes (its liabilities) and its net worth (its equity or capital). While the income statement is a summary over a period of time (usually a year), the balance sheet is a summary at just one point in time. The balance sheet is a “snapshot” of a company’s health

A cash flow statement is a summary of a company’s ingoing and outgoing money over a specific period (normally one year). It is such a valuable report because it shows the cashflow strength of a business unlike the income statement which contain non-cash items.

The Importance of Financial Statements:

Financial statements are crucial instruments used by a company’s management and investors for analysis and decision-making. They pore over the numbers and create every ratio imaginable in an effort to create the most accurate financial story possible. Without financial statements knowledgeable management and investment simply wouldn’t be possible.

The Importance of Personal Financial Statements:

Everybody knows that company’s product financial reports, but it is not as widely known that you can produce your own personal financial statements. Your own income statement and balance sheet which tells you your own financial performance, just like a company’s financial statements.

Company management know that it would be impossible to run a company without financial reports giving them information about their financial strength, productivity, goal setting and so on. Is it any less logical that you need your own personal financial reports to know how well you are performing financially, just like a company’s management?

Your financial statement will tell you your financial strength. They will tell you whether you fall into the poor, middle class or wealthy class. Current statements can be compared to prior statements to create a trend, a story, over time. You can also use your financial statements for scenario analysis, such as looking at he impact of an investment on your financial position or the impact of interest rates rising.

Your Personal Income Statement:

Income statements following the following structure: Income - expenses - taxes = net income (also called net profit).

Rather than simply listing your incomes and expenses by item it is useful to categorise them in a way that will help you know whether you have the income and expense profile of a poor, middle class or wealthy person. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the U.S. classifies all income and loss items into three categories: active, passive and portfolio.

In brief, active income is income from your salary, wages, fees, commissions, and sole proprietorship business.

Passive income is income that’s received, usually regularly, by an individual who doesn’t materially participate such as rental from real estate, royalties from patents and license agreements, and businesses you own.

Portfolio income is investment income from paper investments such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds in the form of interest received or dividends or capital gains (or losses) from their sale.

Similarly, expenses that are associated with your active income are active expenses, and so forth for your passive and portfolio expenses against your passive and portfolio income. Your active income is generally not tax deductible while your passive and portfolio expenses are tax deductible. Thus we refer to active income as bad expenses and passive and portfolio expenses as good expenses.

Income Statement:

Income (Realised)

- Active

- Passive

- Portfolio

Expenses

Deductible expenses

- Passive

- Portfolio

Non-deductible expenses

Net Income

Your Personal Balance Sheets:

Balance sheets follow the following structure: Assets = Liabilities + Equity or Equity (or net worth) = Assets - Liabilities.

Just like your personal income statement it is useful to categorise your personal balance sheet in a way that will help you know if you have the assets and debt profile of the poor, middle class or wealthy person. Assets and liabilities can be split into good and bad assets or liabilities.

Good assets are investments. In short, they put money in your bank account. Good liabilities refer to debt that is used to buy good assets, which makes the debt expense (interest payments) tax deductible.

Bad assets refer to anything else. They take money out of your bank account. They cost you money to own them. Bad liabilities, is debt that is used to buy bad assets, which makes the debt expense not tax deductible.

Just like your personal income statement, your good assets and good liabilities can be categorised as passive or portfolio based. There is no active assets or liabilities because the income is from your wage and thus there is no asset or liability.

Balance Sheet:

Assets

Good assets

- Passive

- Portfolio

Bad assets

Liabilities

Good assets

- Passive

- Portfolio

Bad assets

Net Worth

Poor, middle class and wealthy:

The makeup of your income, expenses, assets and liabilities and how they interact tells a story-your financial story. By filling in your financial statement, you can tell which class you’re in and a great deal about where you are on your wealth journey.

The poor, middle class and wealthy each have a different story, a different financial makeup, which is reflected in their financial statements. Each class’s financial statement is unique. You won’t have a poor- or middle class-looking financial statement and be wealthy.

To become wealthy, you need to understand your financial statement and create a plan to change it so that it looks like that of a wealthy person.

The poor earn only limited active income and no passive or portfolio income. They have little or no good assets or bad assets.

The middle class earn primarily active income, and little in the way of passive or portfolio income. They have little in the way of good assets and loads of bad assets and thus have little good debt and loads of bad debt.

In contrast the wealthy earn primarily passive and portfolio income and little in the way if active income. They have loads of good assets which provide the passive and portfolio income and few bad assets (compared to their wealth). The wealthy have loads of good debt (at least while they’re accumulating their wealth) and little or no bad debt (compared to their wealth).

So what does your personal financial statement looks like? The poor, middle class, the wealthy or a combination?

Cherie Ang


For most home business owners and many small business operators, their idea of a profit and loss statement, P&L in business parlance, may be oversimplified. If they had more income than expenses, they made a profit. If not, they had a loss and will usually try to find more business or increase prices to turn the trend around. By better understanding their own business’s profit and loss statement, they will be able to determine not only how much money is earned and spent, but also track their expenses to gain better control of the finances.

The first thing to remember is that there is a difference between a budget and a profit and loss statement. Income is projected and expenses are budgeted, based on the income projection. If the income does not meet the forecast, certain expenses will need to reigned in to make the profit and loss statement come in on the plus side at the end of the month.

The business’s P&L can be as simple or as complex as you choose to make it, but the more tracking of expenses that you do, the better handle you can have on what needs to be done to control your profit amount. For example, you can simple include a line in your expense column pertaining to utilities and lump them all together. However, to get a better picture of where your money is going, you will want to break them down into subcategories such as electric, gas, water and telephone.

By keeping them separate you may see a need to bring telephone costs under control by eliminating unnecessary lines that seldom ring or find ways to save on your electric costs. If you deduct for business use of your home, you will have a pretty good idea of what your costs for utilities, rent, insurance and other expenses will be based on the percentage of your home’s cost deducted for business use of the home.

One of the first things to budget, which has the greatest impact on your P&L will be income. Whether you sell a product or service, you will need to track all forms of income, as well as allow for deductions due to refunds and rebates and any discounts offered as customer incentives. Tracking this on the P&L is fairly easy, as if the money comes into the business it is considered income. The source can be itemized as well to help indicate how you may go about increasing income.

Expenses in the budget can be calculated as a fixed dollar amount or a percentage of income, which usually provides greater control over spending. Itemized expenses on the P&: can also make filing income taxes easier as you will have a monthly record of how much money came into the business as well as where every dollar went that left the building.

Marquez Comelab


In Financial Accounting - Reporting for those outside the business, the 3 most important financial statements, relevant for budding entrepreneurs are:

1. The Statement of Financial Position or the Balance Sheet

2. The Statement of Income or The Profit & Loss Statement

3. The Statement Of Cash Flows.

The Balance Sheet shows the business’s assets, the liabilities, and the equities of a business. It is a ’snapshot’ of the business economic resources at a certain date. That is why when you see one, it says something like, The Statement Of Financial Position as at dd/mm/yyyy.

Unlike a Balance Sheet that is a ’snapshot’ of economic resources, the Profit and Loss Statement is a summary of the flows of earned revenues and incurred expenses of a business for a period of time. That is why when you see one, it says something like: Profit & Loss Statement for the year 200X.

The Statement of Cash Flows summarizes the ‘cash’ effects of the activities of a business for a period of time. These activities can be operating, investing and financing. The keyword that I would like to emphasize in the above definition is the word ‘cash’. It only records activities that involved the transfer of cash.

I can summarize the above even further:

1. Your Balance Sheet shows you what you own and how you acquired them (borrowed from others or contributed by you).

2. Your Profit And Loss shows you how much you are expending each period and how much you are earning.

3. The statement of Cash Flows summarizes the exchange of cash in your operating, investing and financing activities.

I personally feel that for most freelancers, when starting a small business, attention should be placed on your Profit and Loss statement because that is your record of how much income is coming in and how much expenses is going out. Take a look at the revenue items there to know which activity is bringing in money and take a look at the expense items to see which ones are costing you the most and ask yourself whether those expenses are really necessary. Are there ways in which you could cut your costs?

Costs are what any entrepreneur has to control at the start of every business. No cost item should go by unnoticed or unmonitored. Their existence must be justified. Every dollar counts. Every dollar that gets tied up in one thing is a dollar that could otherwise be used somewhere else.

________________

This article was written for OrangesAndLime.com, to help creative individuals  artists, musicians, designers, illustrators and entertainers  build their own freelance businesses. Please note that this article serves as a guideline only. You should still seek professional advice regarding the matter because laws and practices change over time and they differ from country to country.

e-inbusiness


LONDON 6th October 2008 – Full service, multi-channel eCommerce and eMarketing agency e-inbusiness has strengthened its senior management team with the appointment of Jonathan Meller, who joins the business as eCommerce Development Manager.

 

Meller, who joins e-inbusiness from Standing Stones Software Limited, has been appointed to oversee and build upon all eCommerce development processes. Meller is also tasked with driving forward the eCommerce development strategy.

 

Bringing together extensive technical, development and implementation skills, Meller has extensive experience of working in the software sector. Meller started his career developing QA systems in engineering before moving into managing the development of back office and warehouse based systems for retailers. He also has experience of financial software having previously worked for Coda plc and has worked internationally as a technical consultant for projects in the Far East and Australia.

 

Speaking about the appointment Meller said: “It’s a privilege to join the talented and innovative team at e-inbusiness. I have been impressed by the energy and skill they dedicate to the high quality work they deliver. I am looking forward to playing my role in continually enhancing the development process and ensuring that we continue to build world class eCommerce solutions for our clients that help them maximise their online revenue and ROI.”

 

Nigel Corp, e-inbusiness Chief Operating Officer said that recruiting Meller was another vital step in the continuing growth and development of e-inbusiness. He said: “We are thrilled to have Jonathan join our business as eCommerce Development Manager. His extensive experience of leading software development projects coupled with his knowledge of the retail sector will add value to our business. I look forward to him bringing drive and determination to this new role.”

 

Building online brands since 1999 for a large number of high profile retail clients including: New Look, Radley, Farrow & Ball, The Conran Shop, The Jacques Vert Group and Dreams e-inbusiness understands retail business needs and combines high energy creativity, best of breed technology and full service support to add measurable value to its clients. For further information visit: www.e-inbusiness.co.uk