One of the most important factors in running your business is managing your business finances. Believe it or not, you can have a wonderful and profitable business but lose is all due to poor money management. Not managing your cash flow and responsibilities correctly can cause the death of your business faster than almost anything. Here are five tools to help manage your business finances.
1. Go Daddy Bookkeeping – This bookkeeping app does a lot more than bookkeeping. While it is single entry which might make a few accountants cry, it works great for the small online business owner. The system also offers tax information and reports, including the ability to print out a Schedule C for US taxes. They’ve recently added some invoicing and timekeeping features too, so this might become an “all in one” system that is a must-use.
2. FreshBooks – While FreshBooks often bills itself as an accounting app, it’s really just an invoicing application with some project management features such as teams and time tracking, as well as the ability for clients to sign in and look at what’s happening with their time, and more. To get full accounting features you’ll have to export to QuickBooks (see below). There are an enormous amount of third party apps you can connect to it, too. What really makes it stand out is how simple it is to understand and use.
Link - http://www.freshbooks.com/
3. Shoeboxed – Every small business owner needs to keep track of receipts for tax time. It’s one of the hardest things to keep organized. But, if you don’t do it, you could either lose out on deductions, or you could risk taking a deduction you know you deserve without proof and then risk losing that deduction in an audit. Shoeboxed lets you keep your receipts organized better without worry of them being lost.
Link - https://www.shoeboxed.com/
4. PayPal – Love it or hate it, most people are very comfortable paying with PayPal and you’ll likely increase your income if you offer payment methods that are easily to use, respected, accepted, and provide the customer with options. Payments can be made via PayPal, or they can pay via credit card if you have PayPal for Business.
Link - http://www.paypal.com/
5. QuickBooks – No discussion of managing business finances can leave out QuickBooks, often thought of as the gold standard of accounting and financial management software for business. Today, you can use QuickBooks Online for less than $10.00 per month and it has all the bells and whistles that you could want for small micro businesses to super-large corporations.
In addition to finding the right tools to help you manage your business finances, it’s important to read about small business finances - even if you choose to hire a professional CPA to help. Because after all it’s your signature and business on the line if something goes wrong.