Ram Entry #18
11th Feb 2019
On 7th Feb :
Terra village event was the next event we had to plan for and the major planning was to decide on the number of DIYs and materials that needed to purchase for the event. After our events from both SOTA and CoHass. the replenishment of stock was planned to be done in later date. As we were planning to go for the DIY concept we were certain, we wanted to have our customers using new plants to cater to more options in terms of colours and variety.
Intially we thought that Pick a Plant would have their new stock but they told us the shipment is delayed again. Thus, we had to go with our alternative supplier, Hua Hng.
Shun kai and myself decided to go down in person to buy the plants. As Shun Kai reached the location first. He realized that Hua Hng was closed due to CNY. Once I reached, Shun Kai and myslef decided to try out other nurseries that were located within walking range from Hua Hng.
We walked into three nurseries and narrowed down to choosing the plants from Garden Service whose plants were much healthier and the suppliers were open to negotiation for the price based on the quantity we were planning to buy.
After much discussion with Shun Kai , where we took into consideration of the leftover plants at my place and the plants that were healthy at Garden Service, we came to conclusion on purchasing 20 plants. Subsequently, we started negotiating with the supplier where Shun Kai and myself were trying our best to buy the plants as low as possible so that it would benefit us and the cost price of 1 terrarium would be reduced greatly.
After 15 mins of negotiation, the supplier came down to a considerably a slightly lower price than quoted for per plant. With that, we came to the conclusion purchasing trip. The other materials such as sand and glasses Shiju offered to take responsibility in purchasing them as we had already quoted the number and our usual suppliers for those materials were closer him.
11th Feb 2019 :
Cheryl and I did the financial statements for the month of January which posed a big hassle to balance the figures well in the balance sheet.
Firstly, as I come from the Engineering background I did not have much knowledge with handling finance .However, I wanted to apply the knowledge learnt from ET1932 (Entrepreneurial Accounting & Finance) module that was taught in Minor in Entrepreneur
As I opened an OCBC Frank account where our capital amount for the business was placed . I was assigned to handle the reimbursements and online payment were received.
In the initial stages, Cheryl assisted me on areas whenever I had queries when doing up the statement or the balance sheet. Subsequently, we created an excel sheet to categorize the types of expenses our business incurred so that it would make it easier to categorize expenses and also would serve as a better reference for the balance sheet.
I realized when a mistake is made in accounting it is really difficult to be identified by the person who is doing it. Thus, at instances where I could not find out my mistakes Cheryl had to point them out.
Calculating the wages and cost of good sold were the areas I went wrong because they were varying expenses. Wages were constantly changing based on the hours we were involved in the events we participated in. Cost of good sold were not accurate as disposed plants needed to be included and cost of the plants differed due to change of suppliers.
Furthermore, Taobao orders where I was largely affected cause of the language barrier. At this junction, Shun Kai helped a lot in translating and assisting in understanding the price for delivery and stocks bought. Shun Kai was also helping us to standardize the unit of each figurine thus he constantly updated an excel sheet to make it more convenient. The excel sheet also served as a platform for reference for Cheryl and myself.
Overall, the experience was rather a rough and steep learning curve for myself but I enjoyed the exposure and being able to apply the knowledge of accounting from the lesson to practical aspect.