Financial Tools 2025

Logistics

  • Zoom link for all sessions is here. (You have also been added to the Google Calendar invite.)

  • Sessions are held on Tuesday afternoons from 3:00-4:30 PM EST, March 11th until April 1st. The expectation is that all participants are at all sessions. Please contact us in advance if you need to miss a session.

  • We will record each Zoom session and share the links below.

  • Each session will have homework. Please allow time in your schedule to complete all this essential work.

  • ZOOM Tips:

    • Edit your name to include your company name and pronouns.

    • Mute yourself when not speaking.

    • Use the ‘hand’ icon to let the presenter know you have a question, or you can type a question in the Chat.

To Do Before First Session

Session 1

Building Financial Literacy

  • Agenda

    • Building financial literacy - understanding and telling your financial story

    • Key financial metrics - what we track and why

    • Profit & Loss vs. Balance Sheet

    • GPM, Profit Margin, Quick Ratio

    • Margin vs. Markup

    • Case study exercise

    • Reflection

  • Slides

  • Recording

  • Resources

  • Homework

    • If you have any kind of budget/forecast/projection for the year that you’ve already done, bring it!

    • A list of 2025 projects - including ones completed, ones under contract, and ones that may just be coming together. We’ll want to know the total contract $ for each one and what portion of that will be received in 2025 (show sample Revenue tab)

    • A list of everyone on your team and what you pay them per hour (bonus if you have detailed info on the cost of benefits like unemployment rates and workers’ comp rates).

    • A Profit & Loss statement from 2024 (or tax return if you don’t have a P&L)

Session 2

Building Your Operating Budget

Session 4

Job Cost Accounting

  • Agenda

    • Why bother?

    • 3 Legs of the Stool: estimating, cost tracking, invoicing

    • CSI codes

    • What's possible

    • Job costing analysis

    • Where to start

  • Slides

  • Recording

  • Resources

  • Homework

    • If you’re feeling ready to take your job costing to the next level, review HELM’s sample CSI/Cost Code list (download the file first) and adjust it to match your business and services. This Excel format can then be uploaded to QB. Note, there are 2 tabs in this file, one for the 16 CSI Divisions, the second for the codes HELM uses. The first 2 numbers in each code refer to the CSI Division.)

    • If you’re already doing job costing, review a job cost report from a recently completed project and identify at least 2 things you learned from it that will inform your next estimate.