Small business is truly the engine of the Canadian economy. If you define a small business as anything with fewer than 99 employees, you’re talking about 98 percent of all businesses and 47% of the private sector workforce. Crunching that even further, more than half of those small businesses are termed “micro”, meaning 1 to 4 employees.
As a small business coach, Jordan Tait has seen it all. Entrepreneurs who grind out 50 or 60 hours every week and still can’t make it fly, and those who are generating decent revenue but can’t afford to pay themselves a decent wage.
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After years of helping small business owners understand and optimize their cash flow, to demystify P & L statements and find opportunities to make the business fit their lives, rather than the other way around, Jordan hit on the notion of automating what he’d been doing manually. Pot, meet kettle.
With the help of AI, instead of a basement full of coders, he created ProfitMap, a user-friendly, visually simplified approach to understanding where you make money, where you spend it, and how to maximize the benefits.
So here’s a little test drive of the app, somewhat truncated for the sake of brevity. One of the things I found fascinating is the benchmarking of similar companies to help you see if you are over or underspending compared to others. What would have taken a year of research to derive, is now an almost instantaneous compilation thanks to LLMs. I grudgingly admire it. The app will also allow you to crunch the numbers based on seasonality, to see where you might be able to save money on supplies or services, and even where you are paying for a subscription you haven’t looked at, or remembered in ages. It will also prompt you to consider cheaper, AI driven programs instead of the legacy ones whose cost now far outweighs the benefit.
At the risk of fan-girling all over the place, I have to point out that the app is a great tool for book-keepers and accountants in that it allows multiple discreet client files within one account, costs a pittance per month, and gives these financial services professionals simple, visual renderings they can share with their clients. As Jordan has discovered, many small businesses pay for these statements and never look at them.
As evidence of our love affair with money, there are thousands of tunes about getting it, losing it, craving it…but I thought it would be nice to harken back to the turn of the millennium, when a million dollars was a significant sum.
Please enjoy the Barenaked Ladies, performing at Farm Aid in the big year 2000.
Until next time, watch your pennies, and the dollars will take care of themselves. Or not?
Talking With Friends, Sharing the Load is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
