When you own a small business, you have to take care of all tasks, including marketing and customer care. It can be quite a hustle handling technical tasks such as finances.
These can easily cannibalize all your time, sparing little to attend to other duties. Luckily, some apps can help take the financial organization load off your back.
This guide exposes all the best finance management apps, explains why you must keep organized, and how to take out small business loans to help keep your finances in check.
The relevance of keeping your finances organized
However well-oiled your plans are, emergencies will throw you a financial curveball. There are always unforeseen circumstances that could derail many plans. Keeping your finances in order can help you weather any financial storm that threatens to drain your funds.
Keeping your finances organized may assist you in running a sustainable business. Although a business might be booming, you might be racking up losses if you do not keep a close eye on proceedings. For example, you need to consider how much it costs to sell your services, save to grow the business and others like payroll and loans.
After that, price your goods or services high enough to cover these costs. The only way you can achieve this is through financial organization.
Financial disorganization is a recipe for stress and bad credit histories. Since you can’t keep track of debt payments, racking up expensive interest rates reduces your cash-saving capabilities.
Apps for managing your finances
Financial management is one of the most challenging tasks you will face when running your small business. These apps are the much-needed help you were asking for:
1. QuickBooks
Probably the industry-leading financial management software, presenting comprehensive bookkeeping and accounting abilities. Use it to create invoices, estimates, and sales receipts. It makes financial reporting easy with the automatic generation of financial statements like balance sheets, income, and cash flow statements.
2. Zoho Books
The cloud-based software offers nifty accounting management capabilities like inventory tracking, recurring invoicing, and payment reminders. Zoho Books also provides Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and project planning in an affordable package that you can upgrade as you grow.
3. Wave Accounting
If you need basic accounting functionality, this is the answer. Wave has income and expenses tracking, shoebox functionality for storing receipts, unlimited custom invoicing, and linking of unlimited bank accounts. Upgrade whenever you need added functionality, say payroll.
4. FreshBooks
It is a cloud-based app, perfect for businesses on the go. You can customize a billing system based on customized and automated invoicing, and it integrates with other applications, namely G-Suite and Shopify. Unlimited simultaneous users can access the system, allowing project collaborations.
5. Square
The app features easy-to-use flows that are great for point of sale (POS) applications. Track inventory, accept credit card payments for your online store and prepare sales and payment reports.
External factors you must consider
While you cannot control external factors, you can react to them. Use the acronym PESTEC for easy memorization:
- Political legislation can have a massive impact on business, just ask the tobacco industry–they cannot advertise on TV and smokers have little public space. Economic: however well you run the business, a bad economy will negatively impact your finances. Loss of jobs and high-interest rates will weaken customer spending. Make advance plans for such eventualities.
- Social: Customers’ changes in fashion, tastes, and spending power are all signals telling you to change plans to new environments.
- Technology: Advances in technology can catch out successful businesses unwilling to embrace change. Think Blockbuster and Netflix.
- Environment: Weather and climate changes can affect consumer-buying patterns. For instance, most customers nowadays want to embrace ‘green’ technology.
- Competition: When starting, you will most likely be up against established organizations. Even if you have a unique business, competition is always around. Find something that differentiates and makes you better than them.
Benefits of applying these bits of advice
a. Helps in tax filing
Keeping track of finances eliminates the stress of filing taxes as accurate bookkeeping categorizes all your spending and expenses. You can even quickly identify tax write-offs and some apps can help create tax information automatically.
b. Good credit score
Managing finances the right way should help fulfill financial obligations on time, building an excellent credit history. That way, it makes life easy when searching for small business loans to expand or run the business.
c. Accurate bookkeeping in case of an IRS audit
It keeps an accurate record of where your income comes from and where you spend it, perfect for IRS audits. Additionally, proper financial management can resolve financial inconsistencies with customers or suppliers.
d. Budgeting
Accurate bookkeeping also makes the budgeting process much easier as you know what your expenses and income are. With that, you can manage finances by reviewing costs and allocating financial resources.
Final words
Running a small business can be hectic, considering you have to stick with everything, including administration, marketing, and deliveries. Fortunately, some applications, such as QuickBooks, Wave Accounting, and Square, can help with financial management, inventory tracking, performing automated tasks, and creating financial statements.
Visit the link in the introduction section above for tips on acquiring small business loans to keep your finances in order.
Salman is a prolific environmental writer, and has authored more than 500 articles in reputed journals, magazines and websites. He is proactively engaged in creating mass awareness on renewable energy, waste management, sustainability and conservation all over the world.
Salman can be reached on salman@cleantechloops.com
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