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2025 Bookstore Finances Course

The course begins Monday, 04/14; Registration opens 03/10/25

Monday, April 14, 2025
4:30 PM - 6:30 PM (EDT)

Online

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Event Details

Welcome to  PBS's Bookstore Finances Course!

Classes for the 2025 Bookstore Finances Course run on Monday nights starting Monday, April 14. Classes are at 4:30 pm ET / 3:30 pm CT / 1:30 pm PT.  The course has 13 classes and will run through Monday, July 14, 2025.

Registration opens Monday, March 10 @ 1 pm ET / 12 pm CT / 10 am PT

Information about the course is on our website: please review this before you register.

Enrollment Levels

To accommodate more students, Bookstore Finances has two types of registration:

Active Students: people who are committed to attending classes and doing all of the homework assignments. 20 Active Student tickets are available. (Note: Active Students who are not store owners will be asked for a letter from the store owner stating that they support the student taking the course and are willing to listen to feedback from homework assessments. Without this letter, students will be moved to "auditing" status.)

Auditing Students: people who may attend live or watch the videos, and who will not be doing homework assignments. 20 Auditing Student tickets are available.

How the Course Works

This course is only for people who have been an owner or manager at an Independent Bookstore for more than one full year. Students who register but do not meet this criteria will have their registrations canceled and refunded.

This course is geared towards store owners and/or managers who handle finances on a day to day basis and is for educational purposes only, meaning no certification is earned for this course. By the end of this course, students will have completed projects that help them create: a regular system for reviewing and analyzing Profit & Loss and Cash Flow; a working Chart of Accounts in alignment with ABACUS; operational expenses and payroll budgets; an ongoing financial dashboard.

The course meets online via Zoom on Monday nights at 4:30 pm ET / 3:30 pm CT / 1:30 pm PT. Each class is approximately one and a half hours.  The classes are live, and participation is required for active students.

The course uses Discord as our platform for information, chat, and homework. Discord is free to join, and an invitation will be emailed to students after registrations.  Students also receive a twice-weekly newsletters with information about the class.

Each class covers a different topic and can include guest speakers from the industry. Classes also include some small groups and other interactive elements. 

Required Access and Skills to Complete the Course:

    • Access to the internet and a computer
    • Primary email account to receive course communications
    • Able to use Zoom video conferencing software to participate in webinars
    • Able to use Google Drive and Google documents
    • A Discord account (free)
    • Able to view and edit documents in Word, PDF, and Excel formats or their equivalents
    • A POS system that tracks individual inventory and supports purchase orders/receiving
    • A bookkeeping system of some kind (e.g. software like Quickbooks, Xero, Wave, etc.; Excel spreadsheets)
    • Access to your store's financial documents
    • Enough familiarity with Excel or other spreadsheets to create basic formulas (e.g. multiply two different cells together)

Registration Costs

Registration is $400. Students whose stores are current members of NAIBA, MIBA, GLIBA, SIBA, MPIBA, PNBA, and CALIBA are eligible for discounts (please contact your association headquarters for the discount code before you register, as discounts can't be applied after registration is finalized). The fee is the same for both types of enrollments. Find out what your Regional Trade Association offers.

Registration Requirements:

  1. Before you register you must join PBS as a member. Membership is free, and joining ensures you receive our newsletter and can access course resources.

  2. Only one person per store may enroll in the course

  3. As a requirement of the course, students must have owned or managed a bookstore for at least one year (this includes mobile, pop-ups, and other novel model shops) and must have access to the store's financial information. Students who attempt to register and have not owned or managed a store for one full year will have their registrations canceled and refunded.

  4. Students must have a working knowledge of using spreadsheets.

  5. Students must use a POS system that tracks individual inventory and supports purchase orders/receiving. Students' stores must have an accounting/bookkeeping system, whether that is software or spreadsheets.

Diversity is Our Strength, Inclusion is Our Goal

With a goal of including more students from communities that historically been excluded from the bookstore world,  PBS sets aside 20% of all course seats for people in our DEI categories: BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and Living with Disability/Neurodiversity. For this course, 16 seats of each category of seats are open for first come/first registered, while 4 seats in each are reserved for students who fall under our DEI categories.  To help fill those seats, we have requested questions about diversity status when you register.