A business budget is a spending plan for your business based on your income and expenses. It identifies your available capital, estimates your spending, and helps you predict revenue.
A budget can help you plan your business activities and can act as a yardstick for setting up financial goals. It can help you tackle both short-term obstacles and long-term planning.
Most companies have several items they must pay consistently — daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly or otherwise — to maintain business operations. Budgets are important to ensure payment of these expenses and so the company can prevent any long-term debts. Without a budget, a business may experience any number of consequences, up to and including the dissolution of the company. Some of the items that a business may be responsible for paying include:
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Payroll: This can include everyone at the company, even the owner if they currently take a salary.
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Rent: Most companies lease an office, a warehouse, a brick and mortar location or other space where it conducts business and they must pay rent promptly.
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Utilities: Along with the lease of space comes utilities for electricity, water, internet and phone.
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Insurance: Insurance may include general liability insurance, property insurance and coverage for unemployment and workers’ compensation.
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Professional services: A company may have expenses to keep the company operational. These can include IT services, printer repair expenses, a tax professional and even a cleaning team.
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Advertising: It’s common for a business to want to engage in some advertising to increase sales or brand awareness. Advertising costs money and may very well be a regular expense that a company is responsible for.
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Loans: A company may have loans they have to repay for opening the business, for gaining capital from investors and more.
The following are some of the reasons why it is important for businesses and companies to have the Business Management software in their premises;
Prepare for emergencies
You never know what can come up in the course of doing business, so just as in personal life, it’s important to plan for the unexpected in business. A budget can help you set aside money in the event of an emergency so you don’t have to grab funds from some other part of business operations instead.
Attract investors
Investors want to see that a company has their dollars accounted for. A well-formed budget shows organization and a commitment to the business that an owner without a budget may not showcase. When an investor sees budget sheets and can understand how much money the company anticipates bringing in and what its expenses are, he or she may then have more confidence in investing.
Set sales goals
Some expenses are associated with having a sales team or sales processes, and the budget can account for these. The budget can also include how much sales you expect the business to earn in a certain timeframe. With these items in place, you can set sales goals that align with the budget, adjusting as needed later on.
Meet financial goals
Every company should have financial goals that, if reached, means the company did well for the year and can continue operations as normal or even expand as needed. Without a budget in place, a business owner may not have an idea of how the company is doing and only realize after the year is over that the company isn’t making a profit. A budget can keep a business owner and all stakeholders on track to meet goals because there is a better awareness of where the money is coming in and being spent.
Pay off debt
Paying off debt is a major benefit of having a budget. A budget should include line items for each expense, with current debt being just one of them. As long as a business owner follows the budget and accounts for the monthly or quarterly debt payments, then they should be able to pay the debt off promptly.
Easily prepare taxes
Whether you do business taxes yourself or hire a professional, having a budget can make it easier to complete this process. For example, you can invest in tax preparation software or have someone on retainer who can file taxes for you. Your budget will make their process go faster too, potentially saving you money.
Make large financial decisions
Most business owners are responsible for larger business decisions that will impact the money moving into and out of the company. With a budget, you will likely find it easier to make necessary decisions like how much you can afford to increase salaries, if bonuses can be available for team members, what benefits you can offer employees or if there is the opportunity to increase operations.
At Robisearch, we ensure that the Budget Management Software in our system can serve your business effectively and efficiently.