What About A Budget?
Believe it or not, not every business owner has a budget they regularly review and work from. Sure they want to be successful but without clarity, the business owner can remain optimistic and focus on their efforts rather than their results. Sigh-we get it. Sometimes the truth can be terrifying. But as accountants and bookkeepers, we have good news. A budget can be an incredibly powerful and positive part of a business owner’s toolbox. It crystalizes the amount needed to operate a profitable business and also identifies cost saving opportunities across an organization.
As an outsourced bookkeeping and accounting firm, we work with business owners to create realistic budgets and goals. Additionally, we help business owners monitor their budget and proactively report against it. Our approach provides business owners with key insights and valuable metrics that help them understand the financial health of their business.
Think it might be time to create a budget? Here are a couple things to think before getting started:
The Cost Of Doing Business:
What’s one way to create clarity and help you map out the future of your business? Start by creating a budget. The first step to doing this is considering all associated operational costs your business will incur. This can include things like inventory, furniture, rent, payroll, technology, subscriptions etc. Once these costs are determined you’ll have a better understanding of the necessary income needed to operate your business. Moreover, you’ll understand the amount of income needed to be profitable.
A budget is only as good as its data, which is why it’s imperative to work with a bookkeeping and accounting team that can help keep things straight. Accounting and bookkeeping teams need to have accurate financials and records in order to build and monitor a budget. The Accountfully team uses their expertise and experience to help business owners identify the hidden costs associated with operating a business. Because let’s face it, if you forget about that hefty e-commerce shopping cart subscription, your budget won’t be very helpful in the long run.
Check On It:
Once a budget is established, it’s important to review it on a regular basis. We’re not saying on a daily basis, but at the very least, you should review your budget with your bookkeeping and accounting team on a monthly basis. Why? Because businesses change at light speed. The data in your budget one month can be completely outdated by the next. Hire new employees? Add new SKUs? Trying out a new co-packer? There is a lot to keep track of-but fortunately, your bookkeeping team can help.
The Accountfully team meets regularly with clients to help them keep their budget up to date and accurate. We review expenses, code them properly, and run reports so our clients understand how their business is performing. By reviewing budgets on a regular basis, we give clients greater visibility into the financial health of their business. Sometimes we’ll advise a business owner to adjust internal spend and cutdown on outflows. Other times we’ll show our clients way they can consider the plausibility and ramifications of new business opportunities.
Whether your business is just getting started or you’ve been operating for several years, a budget is a necessary business asset. Accountfully helps business owners across all industries and phases of growth to create budgets that help them measure and track the financial health of their business. Our team is your team, which is why we are always available to brainstorm and run numbers that will help our clients make smart business decisions.
Ready to see how a budget might impact your business? Tell us about yours, here.
Originally published at http://blog.accountfully.com.