Month: July 2023

If you’ve visited a car dealership in recent years, you may have noticed salespeople are more enthusiastic about showing you trucks and SUVs than sedans. Perhaps these salespeople harbor a lifelong passion for hauling cargo, but more likely their reason is simple: SUVs and trucks come with higher profit margins than sedans. SUVs, trucks, and…

Imagine you started a small business. (Maybe you don’t have to imagine.) After a year of hard work, you want to take stock of your company’s financial performance. Money is coming through sales, but cash is also going out as equipment purchases and salary payments. How do you determine your cash position? How do you…

Without accounting standards, businesses could easily skew their financial results to make themselves look more successful. It would also be much harder to compare how different companies are performing. Here is where generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) come in. These two sets of guidelines—one American and one international—are what…

As a business owner, having a credit card can help you smooth cash flow, finance purchases, manage employee reimbursements, and build your business’s credit score. Plus, you may be able to earn credit card rewards or points that you can reinvest in your business. However, depending on your company’s size and structure, you can choose…

To an outside observer, it might look like building a business is a fairly linear process. Make a great product or service, advertise, sell, rinse and repeat. But if you’re in the trenches, you know that managing the day-to-day operations and finances can be much bumpier. For many business owners, finding the right type of…

The best description of preparing sales tax returns I’ve heard is that it’s a time vampire. It’s a time suck. You start out thinking things will be pretty straightforward, but it ends up taking way longer than you planned, and then repeats each month or quarter.  And you’re not alone: Merchants report spending hours or…

Ten Thousand is a fitness apparel brand that creates high-performance activewear for men whose mission is to motivate and inspire them to perform at their best.  Powered by Shopify Collective, Ten Thousand has seen stellar results:  46% increase in average order value (AOV)  16% of total sales coming from net-new customers  Proof of concept for…

Tia Masic had used planners her whole life, but if she wanted one that was locally made, she found out that she’d have to make her own.  Hemlock & Oak was born out of her desire to create Canadian-made planners that were more sustainable and ethical than the other options on the market. A successful…

Growing up, Stella, Emma, and Michelle were frustrated with the health food industry’s hyperfocus on appearance. When they started Stellar Eats in 2020,  they were determined to change the conversation around healthy food, showing everyone—including those with dietary sensitivities—that delicious baked goods didn’t need to be associated with guilt or compromising on taste.  Only three…