Turning Black Ink Into Gold

The tacit assumption among business owners and their bookkeepers generally seems to be that the primary objective of financial performance reporting is to facilitate the production of an income tax return. To this end, the primary objective of the income statement is to report the company’s net profit. This assumption is misguided. The primary objective of the income statement should be to report the company’s cash flow. Quoting Dr. Pablo Fernandez, recognized as among the world’s leading authorities on business valuation

“There is a financial accounting maxim which, although it is not absolutely true, comes very close to it and which is a good thing to remember, net income is just an opinion, net cash flow is a fact”

The purpose of Turning Black Ink Into Gold is to show small business owners how high-quality financial performance reporting can improve their company’s profitability and market value

Toby Tatum graduated from San Francisco State University with a Master's Degree in Business Administration in the early 1970's. Rather than pursue a career with a large corporation, he chose instead to go into business for himself. He bought a small restaurant which employed 11 people with annual gross sales of $300,000. From that beginning, over the next 20 years Mr. Tatum built his company to one owning six restaurants employing 275 people serving approximately a million customers per year with annual gross sales of $9,000,000.

Mr. Tatum sold his company in the early 1990's and chose a new career in business brokerage and business valuation. In 1997 Mr. Tatum became a member of the International Business Brokers Association (IBBA) and earned the Certified Business Intermediary (CBI) credential. In 1998 Mr. Tatum became a member of the Institute of Business Appraisers (IBA) and in 1999 earned the Certified Business Appraiser (CBA) credential.

In 1998 Mr. Tatum published his first book, Anatomy of a Business Purchase Offer: Step-by-step procedures for making a successful offer. The second edition of this book was published in 2007. In 2000 Mr. Tatum published his second book, Transaction Patterns: Obtaining Maximum Knowledge of the Bizcomps Database. This book on applied statistical analysis to the valuation of small businesses is on the recommended reading list of the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts and the American Society of Appraisers. In 2009 Mr. Tatum published his third book, Pricing A Small Business For Sale: A practical guide for business owners, business brokers, buyers and their advisors. This book was awarded Best Publication of the Year by the Institute of Business Appraisers.

In 2007 the State of Nevada required that anyone engaged in business brokerage must possess a real estate sales license and a business broker permit. To obtain the business broker permit, real estate licensees were required to take a 24-hour course in business brokerage. Mr. Tatum was the first person the State of Nevada Real Estate Division approved to teach this course. As of the publication date of this book, Mr. Tatum has provided the required 24 hours training for approximately half of all licensed business brokers in Nevada.