Financial Tools And Resources Every Small Business Needs

No matter what kind of business you’re building, properly managing the finances are vital to your company’s success. Since keeping up with the day-to-day financial activity can be a huge undertaking for one individual, it is imperative to tap into tools and resources that can make things easier. The right tools can help to define company processes, improve productivity, reduce costs, and bump up profit margins. Here are some that your small business needs to invest in.

Accounting Software

If you’re currently utilizing a paper-based system to manage the books, it’s time to reconsider. Keeping manual logs and reports of expenses and profits can increase the risk of human error, miscalculations, and the mismanagement of funds. Cloud-based accounting software, however, can help you to do more than just record profits and expenditures but can help with bill management, budgeting, payroll, customer accounts, reports, forecasting, and most importantly tax preparation.

Invoice Factoring

Positive cash flow is everything when running a business, and when your money is held up due to late payments or credit issues, it can make affording operational costs a lot more challenging. This is especially true for those who work in the trucking industry. Often stuck waiting for clients to pay for loads, they end up falling behind financially. Fortunately, there are service providers like TBS Factoring that can help free up some of your cash. Truckers can sell their outstanding invoices to the factoring company and receive cash (less the factoring company fee) upfront.

Business Credit Cards

You just never know when you need to cover an expense that isn’t in the budget. Rather than having to apply for a loan every time you need to make a purchase, a company credit card account is recommended. Ideal for those business emergencies and great for helping to build company credit, the right card can bail you out of jams and open the door for you to get approved for other things in the future. There are some credit cards that will save your business money with promotions like discounts on purchases from participating vendors and cash back rewards.

Payment Solutions

Though traditional methods of receiving cash from customers like cash, credit, debit cards, checks, and money orders are still in use today, digital platforms for payments are becoming the thing of the future. From merchant accounts and payment gateways to mobile transactions and ACH payments, there are a lot of options to consider when making sure you can send and receive money to effectively run your business.

An Accountant

Though you may have the best accounting software money can buy, the best way to effectively manage your company finances is to consult an accounting professional. Trained in areas that include taxes, payroll, budgeting, asset management, and bookkeeping, an accountant can enhance your ability to make your profits work harder for your brand. From helping to prepare your taxes, to making purchasing and hiring decisions, an accountant can help you take your company to the next level of success.

If there’s one thing every entrepreneur knows about business, it’s that finances and the proper management of them are everything. Capital is essentially the lifeline of your business. It is what funds your day to day expenses, covers financial emergencies, and more profoundly, what is needed to grow your business. If you’ve been trying to manage your finances alone, consider these tools and resources as aids in helping to make the task easier.