Being an entrepreneur, it’s hard to grow your business and to keep your finances in order at the same time. You will be too busy trying to grow your business in terms of sales and scalability, and not find any time where you can take a rest, because you will be too busy managing your financial statements afterwards.
We know it’s important for you to grow your business in any way possible (as long as it’s legal) and to have a professional business accountant assisting you with our efforts will only help you even more as an entrepreneur. But if you are a startup business owner who is not looking to invest into an accountant quite yet, here are some tips you will need to follow, to make sure that you (the business owner) don’t make crucial mistakes when putting your finances in order.
Here is a tip that comes straight from an accounting professional. If you plan to bear the burden of reporting financial statements all on your own, try to leverage the work load with tools and other accounting professionals (via outsourced) if you can afford to do so. This will heighten the chance for you and your colleagues to catch any mistakes one of you make. It will also lighten the load from your work pile, as well as to decrease the chances of making costly financial mistakes on your financial reports.
Personal and Business Expenses Should Always Be Separated
Don’t mix your personal expenses with your business’s expenses. It’s important for you, as an entrepreneur, to not make personal expenses on your own business’s credit card. It may be more convenient for you to have only one credit card to use, but by using only one credit card between your personal and business’s expenses, you make it more difficult for you to track your company’s finances.
Make Sure to Keep Personal Expenses Separate From Business Expenses
The best way to avoid major problems when tracking your financial data is to create separate bank accounts, one for your personal use, the other strictly for your business to use. This kind of set up will help you substantially when tracking and measuring your financial and tax information. So you can get rid of the headache of segmenting your financial data between your personal and business’s investments and costs.
Invest into the Right Financial Tools for You to Use
There are many tools out there (especially now more than ever) that can help assist you in keeping your finances in order. Think of QuickBooks or Xero. These tools were created to help you better organize, track, and measure your financial data.
It’s also important for you to invest into a protected cloud service, so you can assess your financial data on the go. It will be very convenient for you, as a business owner, to be able to read your financial data at real time, so you can be quicker at making more rational and relevant decisions.
Like I had said before, there are a variety of financial tools you can now choose from. If you aren’t happy with your current financial tool, make sure you invest in one that best suits your needs and your business’s goals.
Don’t Be Afraid to Outsource Your Financial Work
Let’s say you’ve reached a breaking point in your business, where if you keep tracking, measuring, and analyzing your financial data all on your own, you could be missing out on valuable opportunity costs. Don’t stagnate the growth of your business because putting your finances in order has become too burdening for you to do anything else. If you have to invest into a bookkeeper or an accountant at a crucial time for your business’s growth, then do it.
Outsourcing Your Finances Will Make Accounting Easier
Also, if you are stressed out with all the acquired work load handed to you, you will become more susceptible to be making mistakes with all the multiple projects you are currently juggling. Outsource your financial work when needed, so you can focus more on your relevant tasks.
You also don’t want to make costly financial mistakes, where if you were rushing to get your financial reports done, you may have made a filing error where you could be penalized or fined by the government for that error. Having accountants or a bookkeeper outsourced to help you organize your financial statements, or to just crunch in your numbers, will leave little room for mistakes when you do your taxes and what not.
Stay Ahead in Your Financial Game
Calendaring your time to make sure you do all your work as a business owner is important. But it’s always better, for your sake, to be ahead in the financial ball game too.
The tips I have given you prior will help you stay organized, but getting your finances analyzed, monitored, and organized beforehand will help you mitigate ideal long term strategies with your finances and business’s goals, as well as to help curate short term strategies when something unexpected happens, like hiring an IT technician to recover lost data in your servers.
Have a Valued Budget Planned Out
When trying to stay ahead in your financial plans, make sure you have a valued budget plan ready. A Budget should be used as a guideline, to help you plan any future business investments or decisions and goals.
Using a budget as a guide will help prepare you in making rational decisions for future business endeavors, as well as to help prepare your financial statements and organize your financial data for the long run.
Stick to a Budget to Remain on Track
My Conclusion
As a new or small to medium sized business owner, you should be well equipped with the necessary knowledge and tools needed to put your finances in order. Because, without valued financial statements, and good financial tracking of your business, you can say bye-bye to your beloved business.
If you follow the tips I have given you above, you will find that keeping your finances in order will become a lot easier for you as a business owner. But again, if you find that you are having difficulties in organizing your financial information, don’t be afraid to start hiring outsourced help, or buying tools to make the process easier for you.
