A penchant for learning about the realities of business and financial responsibilities has made Keo Mom, Chief Executive Officer of LyLy Food Industry Co. a successful businessperson.

LyLy Food Industry, which offers a variety of snacks and nutritious treats, is an international food company.

Speaking to The Post, Keo Mom attributes her success to the fact that she took pains to acquaint herself with the finer points of the world of finance and became a financially literate person.

“I learnt about financial literacy all by myself by being thrown into the deep end of business, helping my parents, and of course from my own dealings.”

Mom says that financial literacy helped the family business to grow.

“We know how our cash flows. We know the income, expenditure and profits of the business at any given time.

“By being financially literate, the money that we spend is well managed and our cash transactions are properly accounted for.”

She said that because financial literacy provides a systematic way to do things, it ensures that a person’s livelihood, business, and money are being maximised.

Mom said that when a business is doing well, the owner may choose to expand by reinvesting any profit back in to the company.

“It is necessary to understand profit and loss, and also it is important to keep a close track of where the money is coming from and where it is going.

“Being financial literate helps us a lot in expanding our business. If we lacked the financial knowledge, we would not be able to control how much money to spend.”

She said that if the family had decided to expand the business via a loan, they would not be able to work out how to calculate the interest rate.

“If we do not know how to keep proper records of our financial transactions, we should not get a loan from microfinance institutions or banks.This is because we do not know enough about our cash flow” said Mom.

One of the most important things to know before approaching a bank or microfinancing institution is to know the income and expense of the business and financial literacy goes a long way in this.

“If we do not have financial literacy, we will not be able to achieve our goal to grow. Many small business peoplelack financial literacy and cannot expand,” said Mom.

She had this advice for youths. “Be a business person from the very beginning although you may not know how to use computer software. You can still make handwritten records. When the business grows, you will have time to learn computer systems to manage accounts.”

Financial literacy is set to become very important to the Cambodians of tomorrow, Mom said.