Accounting Customer service Hiring & human resources Legal Management Raising money Sales & marketing Selling a business Startup Technology Small & Global How We Got Started Biz Books Innovators Owner Tested Tech Edge Best Bosses Next Little Thing Startup Showdown Current Issue Archive

Seven deadly sins

From sloppy accounting to poor hiring, here are the business-killing traps that every entrepreneur must avoid.

1 of 7
BACKNEXT
Sloppy accounting
Sloppy accounting
Done properly, accounting is a diagnosis of everything that's right and wrong with your company. You should be able to complete a pro forma income statement at the beginning of the year that shows your recipe for making money. Crucially, you need to understand the ratio of sales to expenses that will result in profitability. You want to be able to say, "This business needs to gross $800K for me to have a $100K profit," as opposed to merely saying, "I hope I can make $100K one day."
NEXT: Unrealistic pricing
Email | Print | Share  |  RSS
 
google my aol my msn my yahoo! netvibes
Paste this link into your favorite RSS desktop reader
See all CNNMoney.com RSS FEEDS (close)
LAST UPDATE: Jun 02 2009 | 3:58 PM ET
Sponsored by
More Galleries
Obama's Main Street favorites President Obama meets often with small business owners, peppering his speeches with their stories. We checked in with 6 entrepreneurs touted by the President to find out how they handle health care. More
What we'll drive next These 6 insurgent automakers are outmaneuvering the Big Three to shape the future of the automobile. More
Hindsight First came the recession. Now come the books about the roots of the recession. More
Sponsors

© 2009 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy. Advertising Practices.
Copyright © 2009 BigCharts.com Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use.
MarketWatch, the MarketWatch logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of MarketWatch, Inc.
Intraday data provided by Interactive Data Real-Time Services and subject to the Terms of Use.
Intraday data is at least 20-minutes delayed. All times are ET.
Historical, current end-of-day data, and splits data provided by Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data.
Fundamental data provided by Morningstar, Inc..
SEC Filings data provided by Edgar Online Inc..
Earnings data provided by FactSet CallStreet, LLC.