Entrepreneurship & Small Business Management

Business owner, SME manager, self-employed professional — I make the business survive and grow.

You run a business, or you are starting one, and you want to know your real cost, your real margin and whether you will have cash next month.

What you'll be able to do

• Cost a product or a job properly, including the costs owners usually forget
• Set a price that leaves a margin after transport, losses and mobile money fees
• Run a 13-week cash plan and see a shortfall before it hits you
• Separate business money from personal money, and keep records an auditor accepts
• Understand what formalising under OHADA costs, obliges and gives you

How it's built

We build on free open material — the Open University small business units, Saylor Academy entrepreneurship, and the ILO Start and Improve Your Business vocabulary — then add the OHADA formalisation route, the tax obligations of a small enterprise and the mobile money bookkeeping that African businesses actually run on.

What you earn

• Free completion records from the open providers
• An LES Institute certificate covering your assessed costing sheet, price list and 13-week cash plan
• A formalisation checklist for your own country, worked with a mentor

Requirements

• A business idea or an existing activity
• Basic arithmetic
• A smartphone
• Three months of your own sales figures if you already trade