Bruno Lowagie's Online Gazette

Saturday is book keeping day. It's the day I check if we have any unpaid invoices at iText Software Belgium, and also if other companies have already paid the invoices we've sent them. Lately, we get plenty of mails (and even phone calls) from offices who go after companies that are in default, so I took a look at the situation at iText Software Belgium (ISB), a company we started in August 2011.

11Q3

We wrote 16 invoices. We had to make one Credit Note because of a VAT issue. A European company didn't provide a VAT number, so we charged VAT. They refused to pay the VAT, so we made a new invoice with their VAT number and without charging VAT. That was annoying, but... we really needed that VAT number. Apart from that one credit note, all invoices have been paid.

11Q4

We wrote 70 invoices. We had to make one Credit Note because of a company that has offices in different countries. The first invoice we made was addressed at an office in one country, then we had to cancel that invoice and redo it for an office in another country. One company didn't pay its invoice yet. Fortunately, the invoice is only 0.06% of our turnover that quarter.

12Q1

We wrote 60 invoices. Again we had to make one Credit Note (seems like a habit, as if one invoice a month needs to be redone). Here we have 4 open invoices. That's 9.39% of our turnover that quarter.

12Q2

We already wrote 28 invoices. No Credit Notes so far, and 16 invoices open, which is normal as some of these invoices are very recent. That 46.92% of the turnover in 12Q2 so far.

I wonder if these are normal numbers. We usually pay our bills within a week, but some companies have a policy only to pay invoices at the end of the month. Only a minority of companies waits until you've sent two notices... That's annoying. Money is constantly devaluating; nowadays there's no reason NOT to pay your invoices rightaway. You don't get any interests on your money, do you?

This is for what concerns ISB. Sales in Europe are still much lower than sales in the US, but then again: Europe is like 5 years behind on the US, we need to have some more patience. If the revenue in 2012 was 100%, ISB was responsible for 17.89% whereas ISC is responsible for 82.11%. The situation is Europe is different because of the arrogance of integrators. Fortunately, we're making good progress in turning the tide. Little by little, integrators are starting to realize that we can help them to make more money if they buy a license with us.

Looking at the combined turnover of ISB and ISC, I'm happy I'm not into buying shares, but rather into creating stock by founding companies. Half way 12Q2, I see that the turnover for this year is already 60.30% of the total turnover of 2011, and 211.07% of the total turnover of 2010. If I look at 12Q2 which is only half way, I see that we have 64.71% of the turnover of 12Q1, and 119.07% of the turnover of 11Q2. We assume we'll keep on growing this year, but suppose we don't; suppose we maintain the status quo in 2012. Then we need to divide the revenue so far by 4.5 (four months and a half) and multiply it with 12. In that case, we end up with 160.79% of the revenue we made in 2011.

Who needs Facebook shares if he can run a company with such numbers?