There are dozens of financial statements your small business needs to keep in order, but what are you doing today to ensure that you can meet your financial needs tomorrow? You can do a lot of things today to address your financial needs.
The following solutions are great ways to start addressing your company’s finances.
Integrate Cash Flow Management Solutions
Small business financial needs always revolve around cash flow. You need to spend time running forecasting scenarios and putting management solutions in place. More than 50% of owners will use their own savings to overcome immediate cash flow woes.
However, cash flow management solutions can help you:
- Better manage inventory
- Run statements on a daily, weekly, quarterly or higher period
Accounting teams should analyze cash flow statements to find ways to reduce expenses and improve cash flow. Use this profit and loss template on Google Sheets for better insight into enhancing your business’s cash flow. Offering early invoice payment discounts and setting up automated invoice systems can also help you improve cash flow.
Proactive Tax Planning
Tax planning is a proactive approach to reducing your tax burden in the future. A tax planner can help you legally reduce your tax burden by:
- Securing grants
- Utilizing tax credits
- Maximizing deductions
- Deprecating equipment
- More
Using a tax planning professional, you can find ways to reduce your tax burden today and in the future. For example, you may find that purchasing new equipment this year will lower your taxes significantly more than if you wait a year to make the purchase.
Tax experts understand how to use current tax laws to reduce financial burdens and maximize deductions.
Other Sources of Funding
If a small business needs financial help, it’s always a smart decision to have alternative funding options available. Alternative funding can help you get through low cash flow periods and keep operations running smoothly.
For example, government incentives may be available if you meet certain requirements.
A few of the other sources of funding that you should try to secure are:
- Lines of credit
- Credit cards
- Loans
You can also consider other options, such as crowdfunding, equity crowdfunding or other options. When you increase your sources of funding, it’s easier to overcome cash flow issues.
Lease of Assets
Asset leasing is even more useful than secured loans or lines of credit. Leasing does a few things for your business:
- Alleviates the need to incur a large upfront investment in an asset
- Allows you to expand operations
Additionally, leasing companies want your business and will work with you in ways that a traditional lender will not. For example, a leasing company is far more inclined to allow you to defer payments to restructure payment terms in the future.
Businesses that fall on hard times will find that leasing companies are far more likely to work with them on payments than a lender.
While it’s often better to purchase assets outright and not have to pay higher costs in the long-term, leasing is a short-term solution that can work to your business’s benefit.
Insurance
When you try to learn how to get financial help to start a small business, one of the key things that is easy to overlook is insurance.
How does insurance help you financially?
Let’s assume that a customer slips and falls inside of your business due to a broken floor tile. The customer brings you to court and wins a $40,000 settlement against your business. Small businesses will have to pay this settlement out of their bank account, and this is an expense which may lead to bankruptcy in the future.
Insurance is a financial protection that will pay for this settlement rather than the business needing to pay the fee.
For a business owner, insurance is a protection against unforeseen risks.
Wrapping Up
You’ll find financial help for small business Canada[RE2] , US and other countries, but you should take it upon yourself to rectify issues that can impact your finances. Utilizing the advice above will help you better attend to your business’s financial needs.
Over time, every business will need to attend to financial needs.
If you take the time to go through the advice above, reduce expenses and even work with a tax planner, you’ll free up cash and allow your business to have an easier time meeting its financial needs.