Frick. That’s What the Frick, people. Or Eff. What the Eff will work too. Either way, it got you here, didn’t it? Okay, on to the good stuff…

What’s a financial report card, you ask?

It’s a way to measure how you’re progressing financially, either in your personal/family’s finances or in your business. There are much more technical terms (like financial statements or methods of financial analysis), but the report card analogy just makes the concept that much more simple.

There are different types of report cards to tell you different information about your finances. We’re gonna break them down and make them easy to understand and easy to use.

Maybe you’re asking yourself:

Why do I need financial reports anyway? Why should I care or even be bothered?

If you’re trying to go from point A (where you currently are financially) to point B (where you want to be), you need a way to measure…to figure out where you stand, so you have the information to make decisions on what to do, to get where you want to go. If you want to increase your income, it’s helpful to know where you stand now. The first step is awareness.

We can call it so many things:

A barometer, a point in time, a measure of where you stand currently, a visual of how you’re progressing, a report card…you get the idea, I hope.

There are also other reasons you might need financial report cards, for example: trying to obtain credit (or money from someone), making investments, creating partnerships, buying or selling your business…just to name a few. You’ll need the numbers that these financial reports give you to make decisions for you and your family or business and for others to make decisions about you!

I’m going to make this a Financial Report Card Series. We’ll take the different reports individually, and break them down easily. We’ll cover personal and small business financial reports, and we’ll even cross reference them to make them even easier to understand. You’ll get information you need to do some analysis and decision making…and you’ll be on top of your finances in no time!

That way, you can get back to doing fun stuff like some incredible cooking, playing with the kids, or reading by the pool. (Well, that’s one of my favorite things to do, anyway.)

We won’t go too deep – just enough for you to understand what it is, how to use it, how to get started. Don’t be scared.

And we can always go deeper if you want to…just let me know.

Up next week: Net Worth Statements…not just for millionaires.

Oh, and as always, would love your feedback. Can you see why knowing this would be useful? Do I still need to do some convincing? Do you already know this stuff? Do you have something you want to add?