Lenders, and most equity investors, want to know not only about your business's financial position, but also about the personal financial profile of the business's owners. The attached file is a personal financial statement form used by a Midwest regional bank. It outlines all the information that conventional lenders will want to know about your personal finances, from a description of your assets and liabilities to identification of your sources of income. You can get a good idea of what lenders are looking for, how your financial profile will appear to them, and the importance of carefully completing such a form before submitting it to a lender.

Whatever kind of business you run, you have to close your books at least once a year to prepare an income tax return — or more frequently, if you want to get a better handle on how your business is doing. An important part of closing your books is preparing a trial balance — in other words, a list of all of your bookkeeping accounts and the balance of each at the end of the period — to see if your books are still in balance. If you are already doing this, you know that it is tedious and time-consuming; if your accountant is doing it, you know that it is an added expense.

If you're considering an investment in new equipment, a new business facility, or any other type of asset, you'll probably want to quantify the benefits you expect to receive. In some cases, you'll want to compare the expected returns of several possible investments.

This document combines a representational bank loan application and the form used by a small community bank for an internal review of the application. By linking these two documents, we can help you understand what information the bank wants from you as well as how the bank will use that information in making its decision on your loan application.

This set of worksheets will enable you to compute the amount of cash you will need to start your new business and keep it, as well as your personal expenses, going for the first 90 days. The worksheet is broken down into three parts. The first part computes the amount of cash you will need from day one of planning your business to day one of opening the business for customers. The second part of the worksheet computes the business's cash needs for the first three months. The third part covers your personal living expense cash needs for that same period.

The attached file contains a sample unsecured promissory note that can be customized to document a loan to you from a family member, friend, or other private party. The form is designed to help prove that you have established a formal debtor/creditor relationship and that the exchange of money is a loan, not a gift. Executing a promissory note and adhering to its terms will help reduce the risks from gift tax issues, conflicts of interest and mismanagement claims, and personal misunderstandings between insiders and entrepreneurs.

Personal visits, telephone calls, and letters are the three most common collection approaches that small business owners use to collect past due accounts. Since many small business owners simply don't have the time or opportunity for personal visits or telephone calls, a letter is often the method of choice. The attached file contains three sample collection letters, each designed with a different purpose. Each succeeding letter is slightly more strongly worded than the previous one — ranging from a friendly reminder to notification that you are turning over the matter to a lawyer or collection agency. You can easily modify any of these letters to fit your situation or your personal style.

An income statement (sometimes called a profit and loss statement) lists your revenues and expenses, and tells you the profit or loss of your business for a given period of time. You've probably seen a formal income statement for other businesses or have paid your accountant to prepare one for yours. If you would like to try creating an income statement yourself for your business, you can use the spreadsheet template, contained in the attached file, as a starting point. Just plug in your income and expense account balances and the spreadsheet will automatically calculate all the subtotals and totals, and compute your net income.

Is much of your business transacted in cash? If so, precise control over your daily cash receipts is critical to the financial health of your business. To help you keep track of how much cash you take in and where it went — each day and right down to the penny — we have designed a simple reconciliation form, the Daily Cash Sheet, contained in the attached file. Just plug in your amounts for the day, and you will be alerted to any cash discrepancies, which may be the result of theft, an accounting error, a mistake when charging a customer, or an overlooked transaction. You will also be alerted to any special transactions that occurred during the day, such as cash received from non-sales sources or cash paid out. All of this should result in better financial records and possibly even lower accounting fees if an accountant does your books.

Do you extend credit to your customers? If you do, two things are essential to maintaining control of your receivables. First, you need to maintain an accurate accounts receivable ledger for each customer — in other words, an up-to-date record of each customer's charges, payments, and balance due. Second, you also need to be able to send an accurate monthly statement to every customer who owes you money.

If you find yourself spending lots of time every month reconciling your bank statement and still aren't able to nail it down to the penny, our specially designed monthly bank reconciliation form contained in the attached file might be able to help you. It can help make the process far less painful and much more accurate, and will even do some of the clerical work for you. Just plug in the account balance shown on your bank statement, your deposits in transit, your outstanding checks, and your account balance according to your books in the spaces provided. The reconciliation will add up all the amounts, and immediately tell you if your books agree with your bank balance. If they don't agree, you can get right to the business of finding your errors (sorry, the spreadsheet can't do that for you)!

The Cash Flow Budget Worksheet is used to project your business's cash inflows and outflows over a six-month period of time. It has many important uses. It can predict the ability of your business to create the cash necessary for expansion or to support you. It can project your business's cash inflows and outflows and predict your business's cash flow gaps — periods when cash outflows exceed cash inflows. It can also be used to prepare a formal cash flow budget for your lender to help assure the lender that you will have the cash available to pay back the loan.

A balance sheet is a financial "snapshot" of your business at a given date in time. It includes your assets and liabilities and tells you your business's net worth. You've probably seen a formal balance sheet for other businesses, or have paid an accountant to do one for yours. If you would like to try preparing a balance sheet for your business, you can use the spreadsheet template, contained in the attached file, as a starting point. Just plug in your account balances and the spreadsheet will automatically compute all the subtotals and totals and tell you if your balance sheet doesn't balance.