Cash is king in the business world. Without it, activities will stall, or worse, a business will pull down the curtains. Thus, small businesses need to keep tabs on the financial side of running an enterprise.
It’s easier said than done, though. From invoices and expenses to taxes, loans, accounting tasks, and payroll, nailing your finances may feel like a never-ending, time-consuming job.
Luckily, tech has responded with many financial tools, like a small business loan calculator, to help small business owners plan and visualize interest costs, loan limits, repayment terms, and monthly installments.
Below, we discuss 7 top financial tools to help you stay on top of your business revenues and slash the costs and headaches of everyday financial tasks.
Benefits of organizing your small business finances
- Organizing your business finances has many benefits, including:
- Avoid costly errors and mistakes
- Understand your actual business costs
- Ensure your business is generating enough cash flow
- Have enough cash on hand to meet short-term financial obligations
- Avoid keeping too much cash that should be reinvested
- Get an idea of your overall business health
- Avoid mixing personal and business expenses
7 financial management tools for your business
Accounting software
Spreadsheets and manual pen-and-paper accounting systems are time-consuming, tiring, and can result in costly errors, making it a hassle to track and keep up with business revenues.
There are many free to low-cost accounting systems out there that will fit your business financial needs and help you slash unnecessary costs and hassles of managing your small business finances.
Modern accounting programs integrate many features to help you track business income & expenses, track vendors & clients, send invoices, and generate financial reports.
Advanced ones include payroll processing, point-of-sale integration, tax filing, and credit card processing features. They also interface with your bank so that you can track business revenues and expenses from one place.
Top accounting apps to look into include:
- QuickBooks
- Wave
- Zoho Books,
- Xero
- FreshBooks
Financial apps
It’s tough to keep your personal and business expenses separate without the right tools. That’s where mobile apps help organize various aspects of your finances by tracking your spending on the go.
You can quickly scan your receipts and indicate whether it’s a personal or business expense with a financial app. They also help track every mile you drive, log billable hours, and more.
Again, they integrate with your accounting software to automatically convert receipts into accounting transactions.
Top financial mobile apps for your small business include:
- Receipts by Wave
- Expensify
- MileIQ
Budgeting tools
Creating and sticking to a business budget is vital for small business success. That means allocating money for different business areas and tracking cash flow into each business aspect to ensure that you are not overspending.
Most accounting software comes with in-build budgeting tools, but you may need a separate, stand-alone tool for budgeting your business expenditure.
Techworld has provided great cloud-based budgeting tools that are less expensive and easy to use to help you plan, assign, manage, forecast, and create reports on business expenditure.
Top Business budgeting tools include:
- Scoro
- Centage
- Prophix
- Float
- Planguru
Payroll management system
Manual payroll systems are time-consuming and prone to mistakes and inefficiencies. 11% of small businesses say they spend up to 10 hours per month on payroll management.
A payroll management system helps you streamline the whole payroll process and avoid mistakes.
They easily integrate with your accounting software and other financial tools you’re already using. Some even come with features to automate local, state, and federal payroll taxes.
Top payroll systems for small businesses include:
- SurePayroll
- Paychex Flex
- Sage Payroll
- Wagepoint
- Gusto
Agile billing tools
Account receivable delays may result in serious cash flow gaps in your business. Cloud-based agile billing tools help streamline the billing process to shorten the billing period.
They also help improve customer experience and drive customer satisfaction. Thus, cash flows quickly into your business, and you end up with happier clients.
Top agile billing tools include:
- Bill.com
- FreshBooks
Other tools that will help you with your finances
Business credit card
Used properly, a business line of credit helps you build your business credit, increase your borrowing limit, qualify for business loans at favorable terms, and enjoy business-specific discounts and rewards.
Again, you can easily cover employee’s related expenses if you get a credit card with the capacity to manage employee cards.
Small business loan calculator
From time to time, you’ll need small business loans to inject cash into your business and keep it expanding and growing. But you must understand your true costs before taking out a loan.
A small business loan calculator helps you determine your total interest, loan limits, fees, and monthly installments before going into debt.
Thus, you can determine upfront whether there’s enough cash flow in your business to service the loan.
Plus, having the whole picture of associated costs will help you determine whether the loan will have an excellent ROI to help your business grow.
Visit the link in the intro to see how a small business loan calculator can help you nail your loan expenses.
