

No Accounting for Startups - dskhatri
http://steveblank.com/2010/02/22/no-accounting-for-startups/

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jasonlbaptiste
Someone needs to be make insanely insanely simple accounting software for
startups. I just don't see it out there. I don't want a bunch of crazy
financial info and options. I want to tell you what I spent money on, when,
and what it was. I also want to tell you how much came in, from what, and
when. That's it. Anything else is generally a waste of my time at this point.

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asmithmd1
Have you tried mint.com? It will automatically categorize payments based on
who you are paying

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Sukotto
I like mint for general, personal money tracking but would not use it for
anything like a business.

I've found it too unreliable and inflexible to be anything more than a
supplement for my needs. They do not track all institutions, their ability to
login to systems frequently breaks (for me), I find their "trends" charting
really lacking, and you cannot add your own documents.

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ledger123
Really sound advice.

When I started my small business many many years ago, I kept records/folders
like a big company, maintained books like a big company. This was what I had
read in books on how to run a business.

Couple of years later, I read a book on simplicity/time management. This
changed everything. I slapped on my face and got rid of almost all useless
formalities of running my business.

Even though I support SQL-Ledger (open source) as part of my business, my own
use of accounting software limited to bare essentials.

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grellas
This is a very insightful piece (typical of this author).

One inherent limit does exist, though, concerning startups that get VC
funding. A routine provision concerning the "information rights" that VC
investors insist upon receiving states that the company shall provide periodic
financials in accordance with GAAP. This means very formal and audited
statements.

For startups that do an early Series A round, then, there will always be a
strong tendency to focus on the conventional financial statements, regardless
of the business model. Not that this is bad in itself, but it is a fact of
life for such companies.

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char
This is really great advice. My first start-up was seed funded by some 'big-
business' people. They told us we had to spend a lot of time writing up
business/financial models, including 5-year plans(!?!). As a result, we spent
very little time developing and iterating on the actual product. We had a
feeling this didn't make much sense, as our idea evolved every day or so, and
thus so did the business 'plan'. But we didn't have the confidence or
experience to stand up to the people who gave us money.

On my current project, we are frequently testing all types of methods and
keeping/improving what works. It makes so much more sense.

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arethuza
This makes me much happier about all the times I sat through board meetings
wondering what the hell the point of most of the financial reports were.

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michael_dorfman
"Pay attention to the right metrics" is always good advice.

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traskjd
<http://www.xero.com>

We have been using Xero for our business since day 1 about 3 years ago. Web
based, has an API, multi-currency support, automatic bank feed downloads
(depending on who you're with) and other great features make it a very solid
offering.

It has made accounting an "it-just-works" aspect of our business. It's been
wonderful and I would _strongly_ encourage any startup to check it out. I can
reconcile our transactions in about 2 minutes a day (literally). I cannot sing
high enough praises for something that has saved me so much time and somehow
actually made accounting fun.

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sleet
I second xero, it's fantastic. Try before you buy, they have a demo company
you can trial with before purchasing.

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bramstein
Can anyone recommend a good online accounting application for small businesses
in Europe? Most of the ones that are mentioned here are quite USA centric. Tax
requirements in Europe are a bit different, which I guess also presents a
problem as they differ from country to country.

I'm trying to find something that works with the Danish tax system (where I
currently live), and the only one I have found so far is:
<http://www.e-conomic.com/>, but it seems a bit heavyweight for my needs
(small freelancing business.)

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tvn
Why not see for yourself if mme is right? (he/she is!)

e-conomic is very flexible, with a lot of smart and complexed functionality if
you want to use it, but you also have the option to keep it simple :-) it its
your decision!

You can take a free trial here:
<http://www.e-conomic.dk/regnskabsprogram/demo/> and your have the option too
choose english language in the userface.

Cheers Tejn Vanting Nielsen tvn@e-conomic.com Danish Country Manager e-conomic

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Estragon
I wonder whether anyone has devised a similar set of metrics for scientific
research. That would be a very interesting discipline to follow.

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maurycy
I'd be even more drastic.

I'm a huge fan of objectives, key results.

There's a decent description of this approach from Pincus himself:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/business/31corner.html?pag...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/business/31corner.html?pagewanted=2)

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ahi
He keeps saying that a cash flow statement is unnecessary but then includes it
in his requirements? I agree income and balance statements are useless for
startups, but a cash flow analysis will tell you precisely when you won't make
payroll.

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goodwinb
I'd like to ask what is everyone using for accounting? Anyone have an elegant
solution? Does anyone's web app hook into one of the online accounting apps
using the accounting app's API?

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traskjd
We have been using Xero (www.xero.com) and absolutely loving it for several
years. They are web based and have an API.

They're getting pretty popular in New Zealand (we're they and we are based)
but also gaining traction in Australia and the UK. They have a US version
available as well but marketing seems to have been focused outside the US so
far.

They're a listed company here in New Zealand so I expect they'll be here for
quite some time.

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trafficlight
I just found <http://outright.com/> Looks promising. It's free and it imports
my Freshbooks invoices.

