A complete playbook for how to run finance at your startup without hiring a finance person
Why should we do it?
This will be really useful for our early stage and PMF achieved startups, especially in the 10-50 people range.
Outline
Complete guide to how we run financial ops at PostHog - what tools we use, the process we run. The intention here is that you could literally copy and paste this article to run financial ops at your startup, even if you are a one person ops team. Topics to include:
Accounting
Getting an accountant (aka Fondo)
What is QuickBooks/Xero? (and why you don't need to actually use it yourself)
Monthly management reports - how to read them
Payroll
Financial planning
Software that makes this easy, aka Pry
How we have set up Pry - tips and tricks to make this smooth
Monthly budget vs. actuals review - how to do a good, simple process here
Board reporting
We have a template for this that is connected to Pry
You can make this a 30min process
Consolidating accounts between countries
Only relevant for folks who have a US top co and foreign parent, which is a large % at YC these days - this is weirdly complicated to figure out but easy to once its done
Share your monthly accounts internally so people can ask questions
Ask your accountants questions about literally every single thing you don't understand
Prioritize clarity and runway management over 'best practice'
Your investors can help here
When to hire a finance person
Budget for how much this will all cost you
Hint - it's still 10% of hiring a finance person
What this does not cover
Who to bank with - there is plenty of good info out there already, and I don't want to share where our money is kept tbh (phishing risk)
Tax filing and reporting - but your accountant should be able to sort this all for you
Assumptions to make in your financial plan - but you should ask your investors for help here - they have teams of associates and analysts who can be especially helpful for this kind of thing
Hm, this could turn into a bit of a mammoth guide... let's see!
charlescook-ph
commented
2 years ago
Strapline
A complete playbook for how to run finance at your startup without hiring a finance person
Why should we do it?
This will be really useful for our early stage and PMF achieved startups, especially in the 10-50 people range.
Outline
Complete guide to how we run financial ops at PostHog - what tools we use, the process we run. The intention here is that you could literally copy and paste this article to run financial ops at your startup, even if you are a one person ops team. Topics to include:
Hm, this could turn into a bit of a mammoth guide... let's see!