Tag Archive for: Small Business

9 Financial Tools To Better Your Small Business

,

Keeping up with the financial side of owning a small business can feel like a never-ending job.

From invoices to expenses to day-to-day accounting and dealing with the Tax Department, it’s a wonder that entrepreneurs ever find the time to deal with actually providing goods or services.

Fortunately, technology has offer a variety of tools to save small business owners time and headaches on daily financial tasks.

Here’s 9 Financial Tools…

1. Budgeting Tool

Creating a realistic budget — and sticking to it — is crucial to your small business’s financial success.

Depending on your accounting software, you may be able to create budgets for your business right there without needing a separate tool. If you do need a separate, stand-alone budgeting tool, you should definitely check out PlanGuru.

planguru budging tool

2. Accounting Software

QuickBooks has long been the gold standard for small business accounting, but online accounting solutions such as Xero are gaining traction in the last few years.

Quick Books & Zero Accounting Software

Whatever program you choose for your accounting, make it work for you by choosing a tool that’s both as robust and as flexible as possible.

The software you choose must these basic accounting tasks;

  • Invoicing
  • Expense tracking
  • Client/vendor contact management
  • Automation of billing and recurring payments
  • Quote and estimate creation
  • Tax preparation
  • Multiple-user access
  • Payroll processing
  • Mobile access
  • Integration with programs such as point-of-sale software, credit card processing, and Google Apps.

For us, we use…MYOB Accounting SoftwareThere’s a reason more than one million Australian businesses trust MYOB. From start-up to grown-up, it’s an business software that actually lets you run a business and will grow with you.

3. Payroll Management System

Payroll management is time-consuming and prone to mistakes. So having a payroll/HR systems like ZenPayroll and Zenefits can help you streamline the payroll process and eliminate costly inefficiencies.Zenefits Payroll Management System

These are just two of many payroll management tools. Frequently these systems easily integrate with other accounting or storefront tools you’re already using.

How much easier can payroll get?

4. Agile Billing

The smoother and more nimble your billing process, the quicker payments will be made and processed — and the faster the cash will flow into your business.

With a quick, cloud-based billing system (try FreshBooks) you can shorten the billing process and even increase customer satisfaction.Fresh Books Painless BilingBy implementing agile billing tools and processes, you’ll both improve customer experiences and shorten accounts receivables delays.

5. Cash Flow Analysis

Whether you use your accounting software’s cash flow statement capability, a cash flow-specific tracking tool such as Float, or a simple Excel spreadsheet.

Float App
Accurately measuring your cash flow on a regular basis is crucial to keeping your business prepared for any financial eventuality. Cash flow analysis helps you to weather ups and downs in your cash balance by using past patterns in data to forecast your financial future.

6. Inventory Management

Efficiently track your inventory all the way from your purchase of resale items to a customer’s order fulfillment with cloud-based solutions like SOS Inventory.

SOS Inventory LogoIn addition to tracking your goods, these tools can generate sales reports, set up automatic low inventory alerts, and manage order packing and shipping.

7. Business Credit Card

We recommend opening a business credit card in order to:

  • Improve your business credit history
  • Track business expenses
  • Gain access to higher credit limits for business borrowing
  • And receive business-specific rewards and discounts.

Chose a business credit card account with the capacity to easily manage employee cards (with relatively small credit limits). Not only does this system make it more convenient for your business to cover employees’ expenses such as travel, but it also can boost morale.

8. Expense Tracking

expense report tool

Little business expenses such as gas, meals, and cabs add up quickly and are hard to track.

With an expense report tool such as Expensify or Xpenditure.

Where employees can scan receipts or add cash expenses from their mobile devices and upload them; then you can easily import the information for approval, rebilling, expense accounting, and reimbursement.

9. E-commerce and Digital Payment Solutions

Taking Payments for all businesses especially E-commerce is essential.

square credit card transactionMore and more customers expect to be able to pay for products and services instantly (whether using credit cards or from their mobile device). Square, and PayPal are just a few tools to help customers pay on the fly.

Mobile with Card Readers and POS, Point of Sale we have find the SquareUp.com offer a Quick Setup. No Monthly Costs, Get Paid fast with most credit cards.

Set Up a FREE SQUARE Account – Click Here – 

Customers also want to be able to find your business and make purchases online. Tools such as Stitch and Vend make it easy to make sales, whether in-store or from an online storefront, while also tracking inventory, streamlining order fulfillment, and tracking sales data.

Now, you have an assortment of Financial Tools to choose from. It’s time to scale up your existing business and get more leads. Don’t you want more potential customers to turn into lifetime customers?

We know you do.

Hurry Limited Time Offer

My Lead System ProThe best Entrepreneurs learn how to use attraction marketing effectively. Attraction marketing is the concept of leading with value to attract your perfect prospects to you.

Got a Traditional, Online or a Network Marketing Business AND Want more Leads?
We recommend this 10 Day Trial with My Lead System Pro.

Like our Mentors, we started in the same 10 Day Trial – You will be introduced to an awesome Affiliate Program that teaches Entrepreneurs Attraction Marketing and much much more.
Get Instant Access to easy online biz systemGet ACCESS to the Best FREE Tools and Resources for Entrepreneurs

We are here to help. If you want any help, just Messenger us (Private Message Us) at our Facebook Messenger link – m.me/EasyOnlineBizSolutions

If you haven’t already, it’s time to streamline your financial management process – so you can get back to your real job.

Talk Soon,
Nicky and Dave

E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It

I finished re-reading the book ‘The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It’ by Michael E. Gerber.

This book explains why 80% of small businesses fail especially in the first 3-5 years. Also how to overcome common mistakes in business, so you can build a successful business that not only works but is also deeply rewarding for you (and your stakeholders).

Ensure your business isn’t among those by building a company that’s based on systems and not on the work of a single individual.

The MAIN key idea of the book is this – your business is really an extension of who you are. So transforming your business starts with transforming yourself.

The E-Myth Revisited Book Summary

Summary of ‘The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It’

Here’s our overview of the 3 key segments of the book – the E-Myth, the Turn-Key Revolution, and how to build a successful small business.

1. The Entrepreneurial Myth (E-Myth)

It’s a myth that small businesses are started by true-blue entrepreneurs. The truth is, most businesses are started by people who were initially working for others. They are good at what they do, decide to go into business and make the fatal assumption that their strong technical skills are enough for them to run a technical business.

We all have multi-faceted personalities, with often-conflicting traits.

Your 3 Business Personalities to BeA business owner is not just an entrepreneur, a manager or a technician. He is all 3 personalities rolled into one at the same time. Hence, he has to deal with their differing tendencies, needs and wants.

In order for businesses to grow and evolve, the business owner must be willing to change to meet the business needs. Gerber explains the 3 growth stages of businesses – Infancy, Adolescence, and Maturity.

Businesses fail due to the owners’ inability to perform the roles required of them. The key is to start your business with the expectation and plan for it to grow and work without you.

You also need a business model that will allow you to balance all 3 personalities. So the Entrepreneur drives the business, the Manager ensures it’s sustainable, and the Technician can stay in touch with the nuts and bolts of the work being done.

2. The Turn-Key Revolution

Your business is not your life, and it is imperative that you work on the business and not in it. You should build your business such that you can duplicate it.

Regardless of whether you actually sell or franchise it in the future, this is the best way to ensure your business is successful and is not dependent on you.

To do that, the concept of the “Business Format Franchise” comes into play. It’s where the franchisee is not only given the right to market a known product, but also an entire system for doing business.

Unlike the high failure rates of conventional business, Business Format Franchises have a 95% success rate.

Get a copy of the book now for more mojo and powerful examples!

The “Franchise Prototype” is where ideas are incubated, tested and perfected until they work predictably before they are deployed in business.

Using the example of McDonald’s, Gerber explains how every detail (from how long french fries are left in the warming bin) is tested and standardized. Which is done with the goal of leaving nothing to chance and operational discretion.

Your goal is to create such a prototype for your business, so it can be successfully cloned into thousands more like it. Just like a successful franchise. But, it must fulfill 6 criteria or rules:

Get the 6 Rules for a Successful Duplicable Business1. Provide consistent value to your stakeholders, beyond expectations.
2. Be operable by people with the lowest possible level of skill.
3. Demonstrate precision and order.
4. Capture all the work to be done in operations manuals.
5. Provide a consistent and predictable service to the customer.
6. Use consistent systems/ codes to create a duplicatable business with same or similar Brand(e.g. colour, dress, facilities).

These criteria are covered in more detail in the book.

3. Building a Small Business that Works

Your Prototype will constantly evolve as part of your business development process. What it means you need to constantly refine your business with the Innovation-Quantification-Orchestration loop (more details in the book).

This is more than just a habit or process. When you fully immerse yourself in continuous improvement, you feel a deeper connection with your work and enjoy a deeper level of fulfillment.

Your Business Development Program

Your business should support your life goals, not be your life goals. That way, you can work on your business and not in it.

To do that one must follow…

7 Step Business Development Program

In a nutshell, the 7 parts of the process are:
• Determine your Primary Aim (your life goals);
• State your Strategic Objective, i.e. how your business  will look like when it’s “done”, and how it will help you to achieve your Primary Aim;
• Develop your Organizational Strategy, so you can start testing, documenting and building roles today, toward your ideal future organization;
• Establish your Management Strategy, so a predictable experience can be replicated by anyone you hire;
• Identify your People Strategy, i.e. get your team to do what you want them to do;
• Develop your Marketing Strategy. By understanding your customers’ perceived needs and then constructing and testing a Prototype that meets those needs.
• Put in place your Systems Strategy, including your hard systems, soft systems, and information systems to deliver your customer promise.

Read the book for more details! This is a must-read for any business owner or aspiring entrepreneur.

The Online Alliance Entrepreneurs GroupGet ACCESS  to our Best FREE Tools and Resources for Entrepreneurs by visiting our Tips and Tools page or
subscribe to the Newsletter for Entrepreneurs buttonIf you want any help, just Messenger us (Private Message Us) on our Facebook Messenger link – m.me/EasyOnlineBizSolution

Talk Soon,

Nicky