How To Manage Business Finances
Managing your business finances can be a hassle, but it can also be an organized machine that makes it easier to put together your monthly and quarterly reports so you can make better financial projections. Handling your cash flow gets easier when your finances are in order, and it’s also easier to reference them when you need to apply for financing for asset purchases and working capital. There are a few key strategic processes that represent the best practices for simplifying and ordering a company’s finances, and knowing them is the key to minimizing your administrative busy work so you can focus on the core of your business.
Capture and Order Receipts
The easiest way to keep your financial records complete and accurate is to maintain a record of every transaction, so you can easily reconcile your books. Whether you are purchasing supplies and tools to do the work or selling finished goods to your customers, you need to track everything. It’s easy enough to keep copies of all your receipts to cash customers and invoices for others, but many companies lose track of the records of their own purchasing. To avoid having purchases that slip through the cracks and disrupt your business finances, set up processes that make it easy for employees and officers to catch everything. It’s easy to photograph or scan every receipt with a cell phone app if you set up a process for submitting them, and the easier and more consistent your processes are, the easier it is to get everyone on board with compliance.
Let Your Banking Be Your Organization
The right combination of accounts and credit options can streamline and simplify all your bookkeeping and reporting, so finding the bank that lets you access those features in a cost-effective way is important to your long-term financial efficiency. Credit accounts can provide your employees with an easy to track method of making purchases, so reconciling receipts with outgoing cash is easier, and you can limit cash handling to close opportunities for petty cash oversights and mistakes. Using the grace periods on credit accounts wisely can help you extend your cash flow without making vendors and suppliers wait for payment. Combine that with financing options that let you access money you are owed when your customers wait to pay and your business finances will be much easier to manage because you will have the right levers to keep the cash flowing even when the unexpected throws a wrench in your financial planning.
