Practical business learning

Understand
the numbers.
Know what to
check next.

Beyond the Numbers is a place to practise understanding how a business works and how everyday decisions affect its results.

Work through realistic business situations in short, interactive exercises. Have a go, see the reasoning behind an answer and try again. Build the confidence to read the figures, ask better questions and decide what to check next.

Try the profit challenge

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The Language of Business · Challenge 01

What happens to profit?

This introductory activity explores what profit is and when sales and expenses count. Start with a short explanation, work through four practice questions, then put it together in question five: a quickfire round with five short examples.

Too easy for you, Christian Wolff? Choose your level in The Language of Business.

Take your time. Read the feedback as you go. Only quickfire counts towards your result. Ignore GST.

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The Language of Business

Get comfortable with the words, the numbers and what they tell you about a business.

Enter the room

The Flow of Money

Follow the money in and out. Understand why a profitable business can still struggle to pay its bills.

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The Work Behind the Numbers

Explore how the work gets done, where time and money disappear, and what a small change could improve.

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Making the Call

Bring the numbers together. Explore how a decision affects profit, cash, people and what happens next.

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About

I'm Scott Richards.

  • I was a CPA for more than 25 years.
  • I've run Beyond the Numbers for 16 years, helping business owners and leaders understand their numbers and work through the decisions that come with them.
  • My work connects the figures with what happens in a business: the work people do, the choices they make and the results they get.

What you can get from the exercises

It can be hard to make sense of financial information when it's just a page of numbers. The exercises give you a situation to work through, a decision to make and a chance to see why an answer makes sense.

With practice, you can get better at:

  • Recognising how everyday activities affect profit and cash.
  • Knowing what to ask and what to check before making a decision.
  • Explaining what the numbers mean in a conversation at work.

Have a go, read the explanation and see what you notice next time. Getting an answer wrong is part of the practice.

Work with me

If you'd like help making sense of your business numbers or working through a decision, get in touch. We can talk about what you're trying to work out and whether I can help.