The owner of a company manages a company. In larger companies or chain shops, the Owner of a company is in charge of one of the branches. The Manager must be aware of all kinds of issues within the company and have sufficient knowledge of them. Think about purchasing, products, staff and marketing.
The owner of a company has various tasks. Firstly, he manages the company. He ensures that all activities within the company run smoothly. The Manager keeps an overview and knows everything about everything. Off course he must also have sufficient knowledge of the products and/or services that the company offers or produces. The Manager must also manage the financial administration and supervise the personnel in their daily work. The Business Manager also develops plans for the company and draws up the policy. The Executive decides how things will go in the company. If the owner is in charge of the branch of a chain of shops, he must take the chain's policies into account. Finally, the Manager also maintains contact with the customer and recruits customers through good marketing.
The small business owner has various roles within the company and must be a true jack-of-all-trades in order to be successful. The business manager must (want to) know everything and know what is going on in the company. A good vision for the future is also important for the executive. Have a look at the 5 skills they must master:
1. Have a clear picture of your finances
Do you think carefully about budget and profit and about the resources available, such as money, time, knowledge and help? It is important that you also know how to use these resources well in order to achieve the best results. Write a sound financial plan as part of your business plan and do not make any ill-considered decisions. Balancing your expenses with your income is also called budgeting. You can see a budget as a plan to get an overview of your business's finances.
2. Have your taxes in order
A well-organised administration is extremely important for your company. Not only does it show how your company is doing financially, it is also the basis for the annual tax return. If your administration turns out to be incomplete or is not converted into a tax return on time, this can lead to hefty fines from the tax authorities. All income, expenses, unpaid invoices, the VAT return, deductions and profit are all neatly listed. This allows you to intervene on time when the financial situation of the company unexpectedly takes a turn for the worse.
3. Invoicing correctly
Drawing up an invoice involves more than just taking account of a cost price. The strict rules on VAT are often a real headache. A number of VAT details must be included, and the rates had better be right too. In this blog post, in addition to an overview of the basic rules, we also offer you a handy example invoice. Now you can learn these skills with Superprof.
4. Knowing how to buy
Buying something abroad is quicker than you think. Think, for example, of software such as Adobe, or advertisements via Facebook. As a businessman, you normally pass on your VAT ID to foreign parties so that they know that you are a businessman. If necessary, they can then reverse the VAT on the invoice, or charge no VAT at all. But: that would not be right for you.
5. Keep yourself up-to-date
It’s important that you take note of the latest evolutions in finance laws and new technologies that can help you broaden that knowledge. Make sure you have a strong connection with local business offices and even your competitors.
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Related reading: the benefits of taking a finance course to improve your business skills.
Where small business owners fall down with these skills
I've sat across the table from hundreds of small business owners over the years, and the finance skills problem is never really about intelligence. Most of these people are sharp. The problem is they treat finance as something to deal with once a quarter, or worse, once a year when the accountant chases them for receipts. That's the mistake underneath all the other mistakes.
Here's what I see on repeat:
- Owners can read a profit and loss statement but never look at cash flow forecasts, so they get blindsided by a quiet month even when the business is technically profitable on paper.
- Pricing gets set once, based on a gut feeling or a competitor's rate, and then never revisited even as costs climb. I met a consultant last year still charging her 2019 day rate.
- People confuse being busy with being profitable. Full diary does not mean healthy margins. I've seen businesses turning over six figures with owners paying themselves less than a junior employee.
- Tax planning happens in a panic in January, not across the year, which means missed deductions and no real strategy around timing big purchases or investments.
- Nobody separates personal and business spending cleanly, which makes every single one of the other four skills harder to build .
What changed by 2026 is the tooling, not the fundamentals. AI-powered bookkeeping tools now flag unusual spending patterns and predict cash shortfalls weeks in advance, which is brilliant, but only if the owner still understands what the numbers mean. I've watched business owners plug everything into an app, trust the dashboard completely, and never learn to interpret a variance. That's not financial literacy, that's outsourcing your judgement to software. The software should sharpen your instincts, not replace them.
A real example: a client running a small e-commerce brand had strong sales all through 2026 but was quietly bleeding cash because her supplier payment terms had tightened while her customer payment terms stayed the same. She was profitable on paper and nearly ran out of money in the bank. One afternoon mapping out a 13-week cash flow forecast, something she'd never done before, showed her exactly where the gap was and let her renegotiate payment terms before it became a crisis. That single skill, forecasting cash rather than just tracking profit, saved the business.
My advice is blunt: block 30 minutes every single week to look at your numbers, not once a quarter. Learn the difference between profit and cash. Revisit your pricing twice a year minimum. Use software to save time, not to avoid thinking. Small businesses rarely fail because the owner didn't work hard enough. They fail because nobody was watching the money closely enough, early enough.
More questions
How much time should a small business owner spend on finances each week?
Aim for 30 to 60 minutes weekly reviewing cash position, outstanding invoices, and upcoming expenses. Save a longer monthly session, around two hours, for reviewing profit margins and comparing actuals against your budget.
Do I need an accountant if I'm building these skills myself?
Yes, and building your own skills makes the relationship better, not less necessary. An accountant handles compliance and strategy at a level you shouldn't attempt alone. Your job is to understand the numbers well enough to ask sharp questions and make faster decisions between meetings.
What's the single finance skill that causes the most damage when missing?
Cash flow forecasting. Businesses can survive a bad month of profit far more easily than they survive running out of cash. Owners who track only profit and ignore the timing of money in and out get caught out the most, often when the business looks healthy on paper.
