Archive for the ‘Finances’ Category
Sales Forecasting
Here, Grant Baker, product development and manufacturing expert outlines the importance of sales forecasting. Business can sometimes be a little like running through a minefield blindfolded, however with good planning and a large pinch of common sense it can be both personally fun and commercially rewarding. The old adage of “failing to plan” equates to […]
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Tags: Finances, Industry Experts, market, sales, selling
By Ellen O’Hara You can read the second instalment of my thoughts on borrowing as a designer-maker on the Money Talks blog here. Let us know what you think.
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Tags: Finances, money
By Ellen O’Hara Artquest have recently launched a new online social network and blog called Money Talks, tackling a range of money related issues and topics for visuals artists and makers. I’ve been invited to contribute on the theme of borrowing, drawing on my experience of running the Cockpit Arts Business Growth Loan Scheme. Read my […]
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Tags: Finances, money
By Ellen O’Hara, Head of Business Development, Cockpit Arts This week we’re talking about cashflow and solvency. How solvent you are is a measure of your ability to pay your day to day bills as they come in. Cash, as they say, is king. And keeping on top of cash flow is crucial, especially in the […]
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Tags: cashflow, Finances, financial health check
By Ellen O’Hara Last time we looked at analysing sales in a little more detail, by looking at sales breakdowns in relation to turnover. And you can repeat the same exercise for expenditure by asking yourself: What percentage of my turnover is allocated to production related costs such as materials, outworkers and packaging? Similarly, what percentage […]
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Tags: Finances, financial health check, sales
By Ellen O’Hara In the first three posts of this series, we’ve looked at assessing overall performance, gross and net profit margins, and how these might change over time. But to get a real insight into what’s driving change in your business however, it’s important to look at your income and expenditure in a little more […]
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Tags: Finances, financial health check, sales
By Ellen O’Hara We’ve been busy working through lots of financial health checks with the makers here at Cockpit this month. So we’ve been having lost of discussions around net profit and the net profit margin. This ratio looks at net profit as a percentage of turnover. Net profit is calculated by subtracting all business expenses […]
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Tags: Finances, financial health check, net profit, profit, profitability, sales target
By Ellen O’Hara In the first post of this series we looked at assessing general financial performance, but how can we help plan better for growth? In the next two posts we’ll be breaking down profitability into bite sized chunks and de-mystifying the profit and loss account a little. So to begin with you’ll need […]
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Tags: Finances, financial health check, profitability
By Ellen O’Hara This post is the first in a series on how to give your business a quick financial healthcheck, so should come in very handy. Get your figures together for this year and the previous year(s) if you’ve been trading for a while and begin by assessing your overall performance. Start by looking at the total […]
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Tags: Finances, financial health check, planning, profitability, sales
Making It
Helen Steel is a designer-maker that has taken part in several Making It workshops and seminars which are attended both by studio-holders and other designer-makers. Although Helen does not as yet have a studio and works from home, whilst developing her business she has found attending these sessions inspirational and helpful so we asked her more […]
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Tags: makers, selling, Seminars, tax, vision, Workshops
