Managing your small business' finances can be a challenge when you handle numerous transactions in a week. If you’re not good at crunching the numbers, monitoring your cash flow can be troublesome. However, it’s very important to keep your business profitable.
Not everyone can afford an accountant or financial advisor to help them 24/7. The good news is there are a plethora of apps you can use to get the job done.
Before we do a deep dive on finance apps, here are a few tips you should consider first.
Here are some best practices for small business financial management:
A business plan details your business objectives and the actions you’ll take to achieve them. This includes plans for financing your business, an estimate of how much money you’ll need, and your top sources of financing. While you can improvise based on your financial situation, it’s always best to start with a plan that can ensure your business is on the right track.
As your business grows, you may want to apply for loans or acquire real estate. Poor business credit can stop you from turning these aspirations into reality. With that in mind, assess your financial situation and evaluate the risks you can take. Settle your debts, pay bills on time, and avoid high-return loans that you’ll have trouble paying back.
Embezzlement and wasteful spending can happen right under your nose. Dishonest staff or employees can easily get away with their crime unless you review the books. Even if you can hire a bookkeeper, it’s best to review your books every week or month. Otherwise, you could end up losing thousands of dollars if it’s too late.
Is your business really flourishing? A business can attract dozens of customers and still operate with negative cash flow.
Tracking expenses and profits will help you determine which services or products are profitable—and which ones aren’t worth continuing. Otherwise, you’ll end up betting on unprofitable ventures and wasting your hard-earned money.
Besides setting aside money for employees’ salaries, look into growth opportunities. Invest in educational programs that will bolster your employees’ performance and allow them to move up the career ladder. Purchase tools and applications that can speed up processes for customers and staff. Not only will you make your employees’ work more manageable, but you’ll also help your business thrive.
Thanks to technology, there’s no need to manually figure out your finances by yourself. Let’s take a look at some of the top small business financial apps you need to consider.
LivePlan is software for building your business plan.
Their library has 500+ business plan templates spanning multiple industries. To get started, just answer a few questions, and the software will fill in the blanks on your business plan. You can even invite teammates to collaborate and suggest edits too.
Besides business plans, the tool lets users track metrics and understand how these stack up against similar companies. Performance dashboards can even compare your business’ current performance with previous months or the past year—so you can identify ways to boost profits. The cheapest plan with all the basic features starts at $15 per month.
Freshbooks is an accounting software with invoicing, expense tracking, time tracking, and reporting capabilities.
If you run an online business, you can use it to accept payments from ACH (for US clients only), Apple Pay, American Express, Mastercard, and Visa. By connecting your bank account or credit card, you can also keep track of your business expenses. And if you want to digitize receipts, just upload the picture and let the tool identify the totals and taxes for you.
Paid plans start from $6 per month for up to five billable clients. In contrast, the premium plan lets you send unlimited invoices to an unlimited number of clients for $20.
Budget-savvy business owners can leverage Mint to keep tabs on their budget.
Indicate your spending limit—and the tool will notify you when you’re at risk of overspending. You can also create several categories to keep track of your personal and business expenses.
Making sure credit card and utility bills are paid on time can be difficult when there’s a lot of paperwork. Lucky for you, monthly dues and bills for subscriptions can be centralized and stored in the platform.
For professional help, Mint gives you an option to consult a financial coach to improve your financial decision-making process. Plus, you can also get a personalized plan tailored to your goals.
Best of all, Mint is free for all users. There are no premium versions or paid subscriptions you need to buy.
Wave is a free tool that lets you manage your money like a pro.
It can be used to deliver professional invoices to an unlimited number of clients. Alternatively, you can even receive cash via bank payments or cards.
With a sales tax liability account, you can integrate your sales tax on every transaction. The amount paid will be recorded in the account for easy taxation.
While Wave is free, users must pay a processing fee for transactions made on the platform. This includes a 1% fee for bank payments and 3 to 3.5% for credit card payments.
No one can accurately predict the future. However, you can foretell financial outcomes by crunching the numbers.
PlanGuru includes an integrated balance sheet, cash flow statement, and income statement, but its capabilities don’t end there. The tool has 20 powerful forecasting methods that offer a data-backed projection for the next decade. Best of all, you can import historical data, compare budget vs. actual reports and set up rolling forecasts.
Ever wished you could foresee the impact of high-stakes business decisions? With scenario analysis, you can leverage forecasting tools to analyze the financial effect of crucial investments and strategic decisions with precision. Likewise, reporting tools can provide an overview of profitable vs. unprofitable investments so you can make the best choices.
PlanGuru's starter plan, priced at $99, is ideal for small businesses or nonprofits that need to budget or forecast for a single entity.
Square is a point-of-sale system that can manage finances related to your business.
The app can be integrated into your online or physical store and handle online, in-person, remote, and manually entered payments via phone. This means you can accommodate customers via their preferred payment method.
With Square banking, your business banking accounts, cash flow, and payments are synced in one place. Here, you can access your funds and set aside a percentage of daily sales to be placed in your Square Savings folder. On top of this, users may also avail themselves of Square Loans and pay them back through their sales revenue.
Much like Wave, the Square point-of-sale app is free to use—there are no extra charges for setup or monthly fees. However, there is a standard processing fee of 2.6% + 10¢ for contactless payments, swiped magstripe cards, and swiped or inserted chip cards.
The ideal solution must be able to help you centralize your bills, expenses, and profits in one place. Based on your financial data, the best tool should be able to help you analyze and identify the best course of action to boost your businesses’ profitability in the long term.
Besides all these solutions, we also recommend relying on Fiverr Workspace to manage your finances. This powerful platform can help you generate on-point proposals and contracts, as well as track time to monitor your productivity. Honestly, it has all the basics you’ll need to run your business like a pro.
You can also get in touch with an experienced financial consultant on Fiverr for bookkeeping, financial projections, and business tax filings or inquiries.
.jpeg)
.png)
