You started your business to share your passions and make the world a better place. So why does it feel like you spend all your time managing the financial side? Choosing the right financial tools will help you streamline your processes.
From invoices and expenses to navigating taxes, the financial end of your business can take all your time.
These tools will help alleviate the stress!
Must-Have Financial Tools for Your Small Business
You want to focus your attention on the parts of your business that you love. Unfortunately, as a small business owner, other tasks often require your attention.
Choosing the right financial tools will help you save time and concentrate on your passion.
Accounting Software
QuickBooks has been the reigning king of small business accounting software. If you’re looking for an online alternative, you’ve got some great options emerging.
No matter what route you decide to take, choose software with lots of options and flexibility.
If you’re not sure exactly what options you might need from your financial tools, consider these features:
- Tracking expenses, send invoices, and manage contacts
- Creating and automatically sending bills or make recurring payments
- Creating estimates and quotes without the hassle
- Prepping taxes with reliable data
- Allowing multiple users to access the software
- Managing all things payroll
- Accessibility across all devices
- Integration with your website, POS system, or credit card provider, if needed
An Effective Budgeting Tool
Budgeting is so important when it comes to your business’s success. You need to be able to create and stick to realistic budgets.
If your accounting software has a built-in budgeting tool, that’s great! Take advantage of it! As a QuickBooks user, you’ll have budget tools built right in…which makes things super easy.
Unfortunately, not all accounting software programs have budgeting features. You’ll want to take a look at separate budgeting financial tools.
If you’re not sure where to start, PlanGuru is a great choice!
As a small business owner, though, you’re always looking for ways to save.
If you don’t want to invest in a budgeting software, you can always do it for free yourself! Create a spreadsheet (or use Google Sheets so your team can access). Track your spending categories and budgets on your own for easy, affordable budgeting!
A Tool For Managing Your Payroll and Billing
Payroll management often takes forever, and it’s easy to make little but costly mistakes.
Using a payroll software streamlines your process and cuts out inefficiencies that can lose you money. There are tons of tools out there that you can use! Most of them are designed to integrate with the accounting or storefront tools you already use.
Some of these handy financial tools will even calculate and autopay all relevant taxes.
When it comes to billing, you want a smooth process. That way, payments are made and processed quickly. When your billing process is streamlined, you’re getting your money faster.
There are some great cloud-based billing systems out there that will help you shorten your billing process and give customer satisfaction a little boost.
Using effective financial tools for your billing and payroll processes will make your life so much easier.
One of our favorite tools for billing is Gusto! It’s easy to use and makes payroll stress-free. This tool also has features for benefits and HR, too.
A Way to Track Expenses and Cash Flow
Small business expenses add up quickly—and are hard to keep track of.
How much are you spending on gas, cabs, and meals? Are you saving all those receipts?
An expense report tool will save you lots of stress. Your employees can simply scan their receipts and upload them. The information automatically comes to you for approval, expense accounting, rebilling, or reimbursement.
It’s not a bad idea to add a cash-flow-specific tracking tool to your arsenal of financial tools. A tool, or even just a dedicated spreadsheet, will help you track your cash flow.
Knowing where your money is coming and going will help your business stay ready for any sudden financial crises. Forecast your financial future by analyzing the patterns of your previous months’ cash flows!
How to Choose the Right Financial Tools for You
When it comes to choosing the right financial tools, remember that your business has its own unique needs! The right combination of tools for you may look different than those of another business.
To figure out which financial tools to go for, think about what aspects of your business finances are the most stressful.
What aspects are the most important? What tools have worked well or helped you in the past?
Let the answers to those questions guide you to tools that will either fill gaps or address stress points in your business.
You want to make sure that you’re choosing your financial tools effectively. There’s no point in buying the latest software if it lacks the features that you actually need! Make sure that the tools you invest in have the capability to do what you need.
Another way to figure out which tools will work best for you is by monitoring your business metrics. Track your financial metrics in tandem with your website data analytics.
Keeping a regular close eye on your metrics gives you the opportunity to identify problem areas as they’re developing! If you know where you’re struggling, you can address those issues before they get out of hand.
Tracking your metrics will reassure you that you’re spending your money on valuable tools.
Alternatively, it will show you when the financial tools you have are no longer serving you. Try to identify opportunities to save money and invest wisely. Choose financial tools that really do save you time and stress.
Instead of spending way too much time muddling through the financial side of your business, make things a little easier on yourself. Invest in some financial tools designed to save you time and stress so that you can focus on what you really want to be doing.