Improving cash flow, boosting sales, keeping compliant with IRS rules, maintaining high employee satisfaction, and tracking your inventory and expenses meticulously so you always know “where you’re at” are all key components to successful management of business finances.
In order to get all that done efficiently, you need access to today’s most important business financial tools. Make the following 5 tools a part of your everyday business processes, and you should see your finances stay on track and your business stay in good financial health.
1. Accounting & Invoicing Software
There are many great business accounting software programs on the market today. Be sure to find one with full features, including tax preparation, quote/estimate creation, automated billing for subscription payments, contact information for clients/vendors, credit card processing, and more.
Be sure to invest in invoicing software that will boost your cash flow by helping you get paid quicker. Freshbooks.com templates, for example, have a proven track record of speeding up customer bill payments.
2. Payroll Management
Keeping your employees happy is just as important as maintaining a healthy cash flow. “Payroll time” is such a dreaded term to many business owners. It can be tedious, time consuming, and it’s all too easy to make a mistake that produces a disgruntled employee or a tax issue at year’s end.
It is far better to invest in an up-to-date payroll management software that virtually eliminates all glitches, speeds up the process, and enables direct deposit for your employees. This can be done by using data sourced from voided checks, bank letters or whichever document your employees have provided for the bank information.
3. Inventory & Expense Tracking
Inventory can be as painful as payroll, or even worse. Today, there are software systems that track inventory for you and update it continually at point of sale. Information is stored safely on the “cloud,” and you can generate reports at will, receive low inventory alerts, and manage sales all in one integrated system.
You can also track business expenses with software programs like Expensify that let employees scan receipts and update cash purchases from their smartphones. Everything is uploaded to a central portal where you can manage it remotely.
Using these twin tools to track your expenses and inventory will greatly simplify financial management and help you avoid costly mistakes and oversights.
4. Business Credit Cards
Don’t overlook one of the simplest and yet most critical of all business tools – a business friendly credit card.
These cards not only give you access to bigger credit limits, they extend the payment deadline by 3 or 4 weeks (thus improving cash flow), and build up your business’ credit rating. They also provide special perks like cash back or business-related discounts.
Some business credit cards also let you set up an integrated employee card system, where you can manage the cards and set their credit limits. This makes it easier to track reimbursable employee business expenses.
5. Ecommerce Payment Methods
Most businesses are online now, and it makes sense to allow customers to pay online too. That’s only going to increase customer convenience and overall sales.
Many business software systems enable credit card processing and/or electronic check processing. You should also have PayPal as a payment option. In fact, the more payment options you give, the more sales you’re going to make.
Be sure your ecommerce software is compatible with inventory/expense tracking, accounting, and other software you use – or already integrated in those other business software programs.
Using today’s high-powered, high-tech business software and other business financial management tools is going to save you time, increase cash flow, and boost your bottom line. There are too many benefits awaiting for you once you invest in at least some of these helpful tools.