Balance sheets and cash flow statements are, if not the antidote to fear, at least a control measure. I think that cost accounting is the Achilles' heel of most

Balance sheets and cash flow statements are, if not the antidote to fear, at least a control measure. I think that cost accounting is the Achilles' heel of most startups, particularly those dealing with client work. The key is to always think about employee loaded costs and client pursuit costs. Every time you add a cost -- office space, furniture, laptops, administrative and sales staff, kegs of craft beer, Slack accounts -- you need to make sure that you're allocating those to the loaded costs of your billing employees (in the same way that the military tracks its "tooth to tail" ratio), in addition to salary, holidays/sick days, and benefit costs. Otherwise it's easy to "lose" expenditures and not realize that your margins are slipping. Likewise with pursuit costs; even if you treat sales salaries as "tail," direct costs and commission can eat away at project value pretty quickly.