JIM: If you are, let's say a cabinet maker and you decide you can make the best cabinets in your community you open a business. Yet, you don't understand that cabinet making is a very small part of opening a business. Once you open that door and hang out your shingle, you are no longer a cabinet maker. You are a business owner who happens to make cabinets. It's part of the DNA of a small business owner or entrepreneur. Ask a small business owner, "So how's business." He will always tell you, "Sales are up." So how big is your business? He will always say, "A million dollars in sales." He will never say, "Made $100,000 dollars last year." Or, "I made a return on sales of 10%." Never hear that.

HATTIE: That's one of your goals then as a mentor, teacher, coach to small business and that is to get us to measure ourselves with more real numbers.

JIM: Yes, focus on return on sales for instance. How much are you making? When you sell a dollar do you make a nickel, a dime, fifteen cents? Focus on your current ratio which is your balance sheet figure. Focus on debt to equity to increase what you own. You have to pick something to focus on. And the reason you have to do it is because you talked, Hattie, about making a game out of it. A game is watching these numbers improve. And everybody understands it.

HATTIE: You've told me I need to close my books every month. When then do I need those numbers available to me?

JIM: Approximately right now is better than exactly right later on. What that means is that the fresher your figures are the more useful they are to you. The typical small business probably generates those numbers maybe 15 to 20 days after the end of the month. By then the numbers are cold. The knowledgeable small businesses will generate approximately right numbers 5 days after.

HATTIE: (voiceover) Now, let's meet Noel Hanson a 35-year veteran business owner who told us about his experience with new software.

NOEL: I don't have a CPA in this company. I don't ever want one. I don't need it. It's kind of like running a car. I just need to know how to turn it on and drive it. I don't need to know how it works. And I feel the same way about this software. I just want to be able to turn it on and use it and have it give me what I want.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) Located in Pasadena, California, Noel's business, Hanson and Company, provides consulting to non-profits with a team of four on the payroll.

NOEL: I'm actually going to set up a separate set of books which I can do with this. I can track it which is good for auditing purposes. I can give it to my accountants and they can perform the audit on it. And I can provide the audit to the city. This is a very, very useful tool for me.