As an entrepreneur, it can be challenging to manage both business and personal finances effectively – yet proper financial management is integral to ensuring the success of your small business.
Monitoring expenses and income allows you to see the big picture and avoid overspending. By tracking regularly, monitoring will strengthen your financial management abilities and set yourself up for future success.
1. Create a Budget
Making a business budget should be among the first tasks for every new small-business owner. The process is straightforward and can be completed monthly, quarterly or annually as desired.
Step one of calculating costs involves tallying all your fixed expenses, such as rent or mortgage payments, insurance premiums and utility bills. Step two involves adding in variable expenses – sales team commissions or expenses related to products sold – then subtracting these total fixed and variable costs from your overall revenue to find out how much money your business makes.
Budgeting will enable you to determine if additional funding, such as loans or crowdfunding campaigns, is needed for business expansion and growth. Furthermore, it will indicate whether any extra cash exists that can be invested into increasing sales or recruiting new employees – while simultaneously helping identify any areas for cost cutting that don’t contribute directly to sales or profitability.
3. Pay Yourself
Financial management for your small business can be time consuming, but it’s an integral component of growth. By creating a budget and tracking expenses with financial software tools such as QuickBooks or Sage Financial Desktop you can save yourself both time and effort while setting the groundwork for its future success.
Though it can be tempting to invest all your profits back into your company, it’s essential that you set aside an appropriate salary for yourself as this will allow for balance between work-life and personal financial security. Plus, this ensures your business will always have enough funds for unexpected expenses.
An owner’s draw, which is variable compensation based on company profits or capital, may be one option to consider when selecting how best to compensate yourself as it allows payments directly from your company bank account and provides flexibility. But before choosing this method for yourself it’s essential that all options be thoroughly explored; make sure all transactions are recorded within your bookkeeping system and reconcile accounts regularly.
4. Track Your Income
Understanding your business finances is vital to optimizing profits, controlling expenses and planning for growth.
Tracking your income helps ensure compliance with tax laws and regulations, which is key for financial security. To do this, create a system and separate personal from business accounts.
Utilize an effective strategy for recording transactions, categorizing expenses, and reconciling accounts regularly – this ensures accuracy while making it easier to spot problems.
Monitor Inventory As part of tracking your income, inventory management is of great importance. Make sure that you’re not purchasing more than you’re selling and that sales cover your expenses by recording purchases and sales in your books. Likewise, having an effective system for keeping track of bill payment deadlines is essential as missed payments can wreak havoc with both lender relationships as well as customer relations.