The Creative Coast at Bull Street Labs is hosting an event featuring local women entrepreneurs, She Hustles. The discussion is happening Thursday, December 7th at Bull St. Labs (2222 Bull Street) at 6:30 pm. Doors open at 6:15pm. I will be moderating the discussion. The event is FREE and you can RSVP via Facebook.
The Panel:
Elondia Harden, Elonwick
Aleshia Howell, Codebase
Christine Wacta, GeoGen
Facilitated by Nichelle Stephens
Here’s a list of some of the business resources that I collected.
Yesterday was a new moon and Rosh Hashanah is a new year. In my opinion, September is always a new beginning for me even if I am not in school. In Savannah, September is the beginning of festival season. Hurricane Irma won’t hold the city back from weekend festivals.
Here’s a short list of the festivals happening in Savannah:
September 23rd: Savannah Jazz Fest
September 23rd: Statts Fest
October 7: Food Day
October 8: Picnic In The Park
October 28: LGBTQ Pride Weekend
October 29: Jewish Food Festival
Nov 4: Rock’n’ Roll Marathon
SCAD, Armstrong and Savannah State are back, and the city’s population has swelled in size. In the Thomas Square neighborhood, a new restaurant has opened, Bull Street Tacos.
Gypsy World at 2405 Bull Street has a new look. The store was redesigned a few weeks ago, and it looks great.
Startlandia’s next door building is pivoting from an event space into a bookstore. It will probably in October.
In other news, I am now one of the organizers for 1M Cups Savannah. 1MCups is every Wednesday at 9AM at Bull Street Labs.
Hannah and Annie, two young ladies who I met through who comedy have websites you may want to check out. Hannah does graphic design and she has a blog. Annie is a fashion and art photographer. Check out Hannah Grace Kirkpatrick and Rebel Yellow, respectively.
Figuring out exactly how much money is really available in your business bank account can be a frustrating attempt to hit a moving target. Just when you think you know it, something else pops up. Although the advent of online banking makes balancing your books is a bit easier, a monthly bank reconciliation is necessary. It’s the only way to figure out the difference between the balance in your bookkeeping and your bank balance.
Some small business owners think don’t see the need to do bank reconciliations because they look at their bank balance online. They get banking alerts on their smartphone. They downloaded all banking apps. However, they still may not know what’s going on.
Even though the banks offer “real time” bank balances, it is not the whole picture. Since some transactions are posted in the afternoon (i.e. deposits), they usually don’t appear until the next day whereas debit card transactions at a store or restaurant are immediate can show up any time of day. For online purchases, the approval may happen right away, but you may not be billed until the item is shipped. Online banking sites use the terminology like “pending transactions” and “uncollected amounts”. These transactions have yet to be cleared and yet to hit the bank.
As a bookkeeper, I honestly have not enjoyed doing bank reconciliations. It is often very time-consuming especially if the transactions are only entered once a month. However, once I have completed the bank reconciliation, I can give clients practical advice on how to manage their cash flow, their budget and/or burn rate. It the best way to anticipate profitability on a monthly basis.
A small business, especially a retail business, has cash inflows and outflows daily. Those are recorded in your bookkeeping. Whether you are maintaining the books via a paper general ledger, a spreadsheet, or accounting software, you have to reconcile to the bank statement. It is best practice to reconcile monthly. When reconciling the bank statement, the balance per books is the balance of the Cash account in the general ledger that pertains to the bank account. Resolving the difference between the balance per book and the balance per bank is what a bank reconciliation. It is not a math problem. It is more like a scale. The goal is to have the same amounts on both sides. Accuracy, completeness, and timeliness are the three things that may cause the unbalance.
Accuracy. Banks do make errors, but typically the data from the bank statement is correct. There’s less of a chance of error. However, the data entered into the accounting system may have been entered manually. It’s so common to transpose numbers and that can cause an unbalance.
Completeness means having ALL of the data. A monthly bank reconciliation should include all transactions for the whole month. For example, a September bank reconciliation has to include from December 1st through the end of December 30th.
Timeliness. Most of the differences between the bank and the book are due to pending transactions. It is good practice to make deposits as soon as you can so that they clear at the bank right away.
Whether you use Quickbooks, Xero or a Google Sheets, it is very important to do monthly bank reconciliations.
The bottom line is that bank reconciliations are important. They give a balanced view of a business’ operating cash flow.
To finance a business or an artistic endeavor, many people have turned to crowdfunding to secure funding. Crowdfunding is defined as “the funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet.”
Kickstarter is one of the most well-known crowdfunding platforms, but it is not the only one. Indiegogo and GoFundMe. Plus there are crowdfunding platforms that are for particular industries like PieShell for food and beverage industries.
Several friends of mine have created Kickstarter campaigns to raise funds for their projects, and I have supported them either by spreading the word and/or donating money. I have also consulted for an artist who needed help with promotion for their Kickstarter. Recently celebrities have used Kickstarter in order to fund films they want to make. They look to their fan base instead of studios for support.
Crowdfunding has led to the democratization of asking for money. Before crowdfunding sites, raising money used to be relegated to getting money from friends and family, applying for a loan or writing a grant (non-profit).
The current rise in crowdfunding for business has yielded concerns about the accounting treatment of those funds. Is it a gift? Is it income? It is unearned revenue?! Kickstarter used a reward based model of crowdfunding, where the backer receives a form of reward which may be of little value, and can even be akin to a donation. However, the backers cannot deduct the donation unless the Kickstarter is created by a nonprofit with a (501)c3 status. Indiegogo now list equity offerings through First Democracy VC, a registered venture capital funding portal
Since moving to Savannah, I have heard about two successful Kickstarter projects, Big Bon Pizza and Paprika Southern. Big Bon Pizza raised over $11,000 to build their wood fire pizza food truck. Paprika Southern over $6000 to print their southern women’s lifestyle magazine.
To answer the question, ‘is crowdfunding free money?’ The answer is no. Time is money. You have to put in a lot of time developing a campaign and detail the objectives of your project. If you are considering doing a crowdfunding campaign, make sure that you have time to promote your campaign and deliver rewards that people will enjoy.
Happy Blog Anniversary To Me! It was only two years that I started this blog, Gnatty Savannah. In the two years that I have been in Savannah, I have worked for two small businesses here, and I now serve on two boards. I figure I would take a moment to recognize the new businesses that I have seen open up in my neighborhood (Starland/Thomas Square) and downtown Savannah since summer 2015.
After two years blogging in Savannah, I have figured out what I want to focus on this blog. It is small business and entrepreneurs. This fits with my experience since I have been accounting and social media consulting for small businesses for about a decade. I have worked with illustration agency, an attorney, several tech startups, nonprofits, a couple of retail storefronts and e-commerce sites. All of these businesses have these three things in common.
1) Managing cash flow
2) Getting publicity
3) Growing customer/donor base.
As people move here, there will be more small businesses created. This blog will be a place to shine a light on small businesses and emerging entrepreneurs who don’t always get covered.
“Some of my best friends are gay” is something I wouldn’t say, but it is actually true. I have many gay friends and I have learned a lot about the LGBTQ community from them. I even did a presentation on how to be an ally on social media three years ago. Being out in the South is definitely different that being out in New York City. Regardless, there needs to be a supportive community. To that end, First City Network is opening the first ever LGBT center this week in Savannah. I think it is important to stop by the center to celebrate its existence.
This opening is bittersweet in light of the recent death of Scott Waldrup who was a young gay man who was the general manager at The Grey and founded Speedo Sundays at Tybee Island.
I have been in Savannah for two years, and I have disappointed in the lack of breakfast places and bakeries downtown. Now that has changed with the opening of Rise Biscuits and Donuts. Rise started in Durham, North Carolina and now it is about six cities in the Southeast. The Savannah location is the first one in Georgia. If you work downtown, you will be happy to know that Rise opens early at 7AM. It is located at 10 West Broughton Street.
Yesterday I stopped by for the ribbon cutting, and I enjoyed a bacon egg and cheese biscuit as well as a chocolate doughnut and a Cheerwine doughnut. The Cheerwine one has an icing that tastes like the North Carolina’s favorite soda, Cheerwine. I highly recommend Rise and I like that they also give back to the local community. 10% of the sales on their opening day July 1st will go to the Low Country Down Syndrome Society. Follow Rise Biscuits on Facebook.
It’s hard to recap a conference like BlogHer especially when you spent three days meeting new people, listening to panels, being inspired by speakers and learning new information. I was impressed and inspired by Janet Mock, Serena Williams and Amy Ziering.
Here are some of my random thoughts from #BlogHer17.
Takeaway:
I heard conversations among attendees and panelists that were so similar to conversations I had seven years ago at #BlogHer10. Is BlogHer not growing or is the same old conference model with speakers and panels in need of disruption? I would suggest more unstructured events like a bar camp where anyone can sign up to speak on a topic. In addition, I think there should have been pop-up bookstore selling books authored by speakers and attendees. Other than networking, there should have been an opportunity for attendees to sell their products (maybe an artisan market). Attending BlogHer or any other women’s conference should be a more quantifiable step forward because the time and money spent attending a conference is time and money away from family, career and projects that are just as important if not more.
I am an old skool blogger. I have been blogging for over a decade. I first started with a personal blog, Nichelle Newsletter on Blogger. Then I moved it to Typepad and later over to WordPress. In 2004, I met Rachel and Allison, and we created Cupcakes Take The Cake. I have started and abandoned several blogs over the years, and this one Gnatty Savannah is my newest blog baby. I started Gnatty Savnnah nearly two years ago when I moved here to Savannah. Gnatty Savannah is focus on food, culture and events in Savannah.
I went to the first BlogHer conference in 2005 in San Jose, CA. I am going to BlogHer this year to reconnect with old friends and to reconnect with blogging. It’s hard to keep up a regular blogging momentum when there is faster and easier ways to distribute content via social media. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are social media I use daily. I only blog about once or twice a month.
Blogging is important because this is MY SPACE. Not MySpace (RIP), but my personal space. Social media may change, but as long as I own the domain and can pay for hosting, Gnatty Savannah is mine. Blogging is owning a home whereas social media is like renting an apartment. I need to spend more time fixing up my home. When I get back from BlogHer, I will.