If you are an entrepreneur or are planning to take the next step and start your own business, you should know that there are many things that can help you achieve the best results and build an amazing company, and there are important mistakes you can make and go horribly wrong.
Honestly, it all depends on the tools you can access, the advantage you take from them, how well you use them and how responsible you are, from an early stage you should build small business credit. If you want to be successful, financial planning and organization is key so you don’t end up ‘eating’ away your business .
All Your Ducks In A Row
For logic-oriented minds, organization is an everyday thing, but entrepreneurs have to shift between different mental states and focuses all day. Either innovating your product or service, being a sales representative or even crunching numbers, it’s hard to keep track of everything a business needs.
But hard work will give you extraordinary rewards. We want to help you in your journey, so here are 8 financial hacks that can make your business life easier and will help you build small business credit:
1. Write Your Business Plan.
Sounds redundant but if you don’t have everything written you can lose yourself in the everyday routine. Also, this will help you revise and adjust your financial expectations.
2. Have Financial Goals.
Doing what you love is reward enough, right? Wrong. A business must have profit and if you don’t stablish this goals from day one, you won’t know if your business is performing well. Also, it keeps you focused.
3. Assign Yourself A Fixed Income.
Yes, you need to have a regular payday, even if you are planning on taking only what you absolutely need to survive, have it set in your financial projections so you’ll have your own earned money and the company won’t bleed out when you get paid.
4. Separate Your Bank Accounts.
This is a must to build small business credit. Make sure you have a business account and a personal account, completely separated, and only use your money for yourself and the company’s work-related expenses. Commingling is more common than you think.
5. Track Your Company’s Expenses.
Make sure to take time to check and match your company’s account statements and match every single one with a work-related issue, either payroll or supplies, identify each one and if you spot something strange, call your bank. This will also help you be aware of your cash flow and make changes accordingly.
6. Minimize Your Fixed Expenses.
You don’t need the most trendy, big office to succeed. A home office, your regular phone line, and internet can do wonders. Start small, gather talent around you, and have a lean company that can optimize its resources. Once you can afford and really need a bigger place, you can grow physically. But before that, fixed expenses are money thrown out the window.
7. Take Advantage Of Credit.
You might think this is counterintuitive but a well-managed business credit card can give you up to 40 days of financing in an extreme case such as having an invoice receivable a few days after you have a fixed expense you have to pay. On the other hand, if you are already planning to grow, a small business loan can give you the push you need.
8. Book Keeping Is Key.
Not only to keep expenses written down but also to keep track of due payments and due invoices, to have complete transparency into the company’s cash flow, and to avoid falling behind in your taxes. Also, paying on time will be very positive to build small business credit. Hire an accountant that you can trust and ask for regular reports.
Doesn’t matter if your company is focused on innovation, teaching, engineering, or any other fiel, clean and straight finances are the most important thing if you want to build small business credit, get a loan and grow. If you are looking for small business loans, Camino Financial can help you, so you can achieve all you have in mind. Take a look at your books today and see if you are ready for the next big step.
