Accounting is at the heart of any business but what comes first, the business or the accounting? CIMA has warned web 2.0 entrepreneurs in a new report: ‘Beyond Enthusiasm: Making the business case for your organisation’s use of web 2.0’:

Organisations experimenting with web 2.0 – the new generation of web technology where users provide content and help shape the site – could find these initiatives prove to be a costly failure

…moving to reasons why:

CIMA believes that too many web 2.0 projects have started without a full and rigorous business case leading to several high profile failures

Whilst they admit:

Making a business case for web 2.0 projects can be tricky because there is so little available benchmark data.

It is certianly apparent that some web businesses have been started without real attention being paid as to how they will generate revenue – an erroneous ommission for any new business. However, given the relatively small start-up costs of many web businesses, is getting management accountants in at an early stage likely to be favourable on a cost benefit analysis?