There’s software that can take your company’s...

There’s software that can take your company’s pulse, much the way a consultant would.

Business Analyst by RedFlag ([888] 473-3352 or https://www.redflag.com) is a $149 program for Windows that can help you use existing income statements, balance sheets and other data to check your company’s financial health.

Business Analyst generates reports and charts that give a sense of your company’s strengths and weaknesses and can help you plan your next move.

One of the program’s strengths is that it employs some of the measures used by financial institutions to judge the health and credit-worthiness of a business. What is your net profit as a percentage of gross sales? What is your after-tax net profit or return on investment? Do you know how your net profit compares with your debt or the relationship between net expenses and net revenue? How’s your gross profit margin?

If you’re like many small-business owners or managers, you don’t have a clue. Business Analyst can provide the answers.

The program is easy to use, even for financial ignoramuses like me. For each year you have records, you type in or import the numbers for income statement, balance sheet and employee data. The program supports data files from most major business accounting packages.

You’re also asked to enter your current financial position and your goals. And that’s about it.

Once you’ve entered the data, you can get a quick view of your company’s status from an extensive series of reports and graphs, including an income statement, optimal loss position analysis, employee turnover review, break-even graph, ratio analysis, current position and more.

Don’t worry if you don’t understand them. The program’s manual and help screens explain all the terms. I’m not usually a big documentation reader, but for those who are financially challenged, the two thin manuals (both about 65 pages) that come with the book are worth browsing through. Each section contains an overview that describes the concept, and, unlike with many user manuals, all terms are defined.

Of course, there are alternatives to dedicated business analysis software. You could use a spreadsheet program like Excel or Lotus 1-2-3 and generate your own reports and charts. Or you could use one of the many small-business accounting programs such as Quickbooks or Peachtree Accounting. Quickbooks 6.0, for example, can provide financial reports, including details on what you owe, who owes you and how much you’re spending for each expense category in your business. (But it’s not set up for a multiyear analysis.)

Microsoft Office 97 Small Business edition contains “What-If Wizards” that can be used to view the financial impact of decisions, such as price and inventory changes or accounts-receivable reductions. It includes business charts and five-year projection reports, but it isn’t as adept at analyzing the numbers over time.

What’s different about Business Analyst is that it uses historical data to give you a long-term view of how your company is doing.

The software is designed to flag problem areas. The reports feature green, yellow and red flags, depending on whether the data looks good, iffy or totally out of whack.

The program is designed to be used by any type of small business with gross revenue of at least $250,000. Owners of smaller businesses usually have a pretty good grasp of how things are going, says RedFlag CEO Robert Benedict.

The program is especially useful for restaurants and other businesses where owners need to keep tabs on how employees are handling cash. Restaurant and bar owners can get an immediate picture of whether cash register receipts are consistent with the cost of goods, helping them keep better tabs on their employees, Benedict says.

The Venice software and consulting firm also offers fee-based consulting services to companies that need extra help.

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Find out more about small business and technology at The Times’ Small Business Strategies Conference Oct. 17-18 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. You can e-mail Lawrence J. Magid at magid@latimes.com and visit his Web site at https://www.larrysworld.com. On AOL, use keyword “LarryMagid.”