My Favorite Tool for Analyzing Financials
Must-haves: Why entrepreneur Jennifer Cattaui loves using BodeTree to analyze her company's financials.
Courtesy Subject
Jennifer Cattaui, founder of Babesta New York City
My husband and I own a company that sells children's clothing, gear, and furniture online and in two brick-and-mortar stores in New York City. We were looking for a way to get a quick snapshot of our finances and help our store managers understand how the decisions we make affect the financial health of the company. In April, I read about BodeTree, a visual financial analysis tool, and we started using it right away.
After signing up for an account on the BodeTree site, we entered our QuickBooks credentials and filled out a brief questionnaire. Now, we can log on to our dashboard to check a variety of financial metrics, including cash balance, cash flow, and revenue. Each metric appears on a gauge.
If the needle is in the red zone, we know it's an area of concern. If it's in the green zone, we're doing well. We can click on any metric to get more detailed reports. After looking at an inventory turnover report, for instance, we realized we had been sitting on certain pieces of furniture that weren't selling. Now, we're carrying fewer of those pieces and increasing turnover.
During our weekly conference call, we share the dashboard with our managers using Microsoft Lync, pointing out areas that need more focus. We pay $25 a month for BodeTree. It's well worth it.
--As told to Issie Lapowsky
