Cash Flow, Profitability, and Controls

This unit develops skills to manage and protect a small business’s cash, profits, and assets through budgeting, cost control, and internal controls while preparing owners for financing and exit decisions. Students will move from analyzing financial performance to applying budgeting and pricing tactics, enforcing controls, and evaluating capital and sale strategies.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze cash flow statements, profit reports, and balance-sheet indicators to identify liquidity traps, year-to-year profit changes, and untapped sources of liquidity, and recommend corrective actions.
• Apply budgeting and profit-model techniques to prepare an actual budget or forecast, perform trade-off analysis, tweak product costs, and determine pricing strategies that preserve margins.
• Demonstrate the design and enforcement of internal controls and security procedures, including payroll tax compliance and asset-management practices, to reduce risk and satisfy liabilities.
• Evaluate business legal structures, capital-raising options, acquisition and sale structures, and tax implications to recommend financing or exit strategies that maximize business value.