Running a business means juggling a plethora of different tasks, and managing your finances is one of the most important. You might have gained substantial success, but you could be selling yourself short if you don’t know how to handle your finances. There’s no ‘one fits all’ strategy to handle your cash, but several areas make for a great starting point. To save money and improve your ROI today, try taking onboard these six strategies.
1 . Reduce Your Turnover
According to Gallup, ‘ The cost of replacing an individual employee can range from one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary.’ When you reduce your turnover, you’ll save money in the process. There are many ways that you can look to reduce your turnover, including:
- Improve Company Culture: With a strong company culture, you’ll boost employee wellbeing and engagement, helping staff to feel more satisfied overall.
- Offer Company Perks: To retain the best talent, it’s helpful to offer company perks, whether life insurance, health care, flexible working patterns, or retail discount schemes. Even smaller companies can offer life insurance with the right provider. For more information, calculate your savings on relevant life.
- Invest In Your Staff: Employees tend to leave a company when they feel that they cannot develop within their role. By investing in training opportunities for your staff, you can help them to develop and grow.
2. Perfect Your Budget
Businesses that are serious about saving money need to perfect the budget. Doing so will help you to visualize your finances. To support your budgeting, there are several tools which you can try, including:
- Scoro: The Scoro platform provides a range of budgeting tools to help your company stay on top of your finances. Features include forecasting and budgeting planning tools, analysis and financial reports, services automation, and invoicing. There’s also a dashboard, including financial key performance indicators.
- Centage: With this software, users can access comprehensive analytics, a financial dashboard, forecasts, planning and budgeting, and more. It’s simple to integrate the tool with QuickBooks or Dynamics software.
3. Utilize Accounting Software
As an entrepreneur, you’ll need to stay on top of your accounts, yet hiring an accounting team can be rather expensive. Consider using an accounting tool such as QuickBooks, Wave, or FreshBooks (to save yourself some cash)! These platforms are often considered some of the best for startups and small businesses, offering a range of free or affordable options to manage everything from invoices to taxes. Additionally, quite a few of the best accounting software can also provide tailored solutions for startups, simplifying complex accounting needs like financial reporting, tax filings, and investor compliance. With your accounts taken care of, you’ll have more free time to focus on other areas of your business.
4. Lean Principles
Lean principles were created to target the issue of waste within a business. Waste might occur in many different forms, including overproduction, motion, transportation, or inventory. When waste occurs, your productivity levels will fall, and you’ll waste money in the process. Lean objectives focus on reducing waste by defining value, focusing on the value stream; considering the concepts of ‘pull’ and ‘flow’; and making improvements ongoing. Adopting lean principles is also useful to become more eco-friendly.
5. Outsourcing
It’s not always necessary to hire a permanent member of staff for every operation and project. By outsourcing to third-party companies, your business can access flexible options at reduced prices. From your IT to your marketing and call handling services, there are plenty of ways to outsource and make savings. Outsourcing allows businesses to hire temporary staff for one-off projects, which saves time and boosts productivity.
6. DIY Marketing
Businesses know that marketing is crucial to their success; however, you don’t always need a huge marketing budget. The world of tech provides us with plenty of options for DIY marketing, so consider a few of the following options:
- Write your blog yourself: Instead of hiring a copywriter, have a go at writing your own blog, or call upon your staff to do so. It’s likely that your staff will have plenty of expertise to share, (and don’t forget to consider SEO)!
- Live streaming: Video marketing is a fantastic way to boost conversions, increase engagement, and demonstrate that your brand is authentic. Live streaming is an inexpensive and highly effective way to extend your reach.
- Social marketing: Marketing your brand on social media is a cheap and straightforward way to grow your audience and boost your online presence. DIY marketing is one of the best business strategies to save money.
Saving money can help your business to adopt more mindful spending habits, improve your cash flow, and gain a clear picture of your financial successes. If your budget stops working for you, simply revisit your plans and make changes.