[McG]

I used to encourage converting the financial statements into excel "what if" scenarios.

Many times, decisions are taken from only looking at the base costs of decisions, with unusually optimistic outcomes.

For example, what would increasing the cost of the hourly rate for staff do to things? Would it mean cutting into hours to keep wages down, or would it mean increasing costs of food/beverages to stay at the same level of profit?

I am a big believer of also plugging scenarios into that excel spreadsheet as well as keeping it as a living document to match your current financials as well as being able to compare it to your projections.

I really believe that small business people follow their passions and we are all better for it. Where new business owners fall down is when the necessary skills are outside of their passion area and therefore they either ignore or don't put the required effort into them, such as accounting, marketing, or staff management, for example.

Don't take your eye off of the numbers!

Best of luck in your new endeavour!