It’s not glamorous, but a budget will help manage costs, identify red flags, and achieve profitability.

Between 2004 and 2007, Apex facility resources, a Seattle furniture dealership and relocation company, experienced a 900% jump in sales. Yet the owners, Marlaine McCauley and Matt Watson, didn’t know if they’d actually made any money. “We didn’t have any kind of operating budget when we started growing,” says McCauley. “We just threw people at growth,” hiring more and more salespeople rather than looking at the bottom line. “We tried to invest in some accounting systems, but it didn’t work. We didn’t really know where we were as a business.”

Like McCauley and Watson, plenty of entrepreneurs prefer to focus on boosting the top line rather than wade into the nitty-gritty of financial management. “I ask my clients how much money they make, and the answer is always, ‘I don’t know, it depends on how the business does,’” says Heather Hutchinson, principal at Hutchinson & Ziegler Financial Advisors in San Rafael, Calif. “Entrepreneurs often start their business and run it without a clear idea of what they are going to get out of it.”

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