Managing your business expenses, stop throwing away hard earned profits

 In Ask The Experts, Daily Column

How often do you really run a fine tooth comb through your businesses outgoings? Are you becoming complacent with where you buy things and what you’re spending your company money on? It could be that unidentified spending is eating into your profits.

I think that the bigger a company grows the more you begin to lose track of what you are spending your day to day money on. The problem with this is as you grow you need to pay for more things. Stuff like – extra staff, more supplies and increase in rent for a bigger space etc etc – it’s at this growth stage you really need to account for every single penny spent.

So here are some tips I think could help you save some cash plus really get you thinking about your current situation and get down to the nitty gritty of your businesses outgoings. I sourced my info from different websites including smartcompany.com.au. As I say often there is so much information available to small businesses on the net so get googling my friends.

  1. Review your suppliers every 6 months. Tell them you are shopping around and see if they discount your current rate. It’s good to research other supplier’s rates. Keep your finger on the pulse.
  2. Keep an eye on innovations in online technology. In fact you can do most things online these days for free, there are thousands of online tools – a few worth mentioning are:

    Dropbox – A program which is essentially a hardrive that syncs to your computer, First few gigs are free!
    Google Docs – You can create and edit documents for free – no software necessary! Which means when it’s updated you don’t have to go and purchase an upgrade!
    Skype – Keep in contact with overseas clients and suppliers through the wonders of Skype! You’ve heard of it – stop being lazy and download it.

  3. Monitor regular purchasing made by staff. Things like office supplies, food for the office, alcohol. Often when people get left with this type of responsibility they don’t take into consideration a budget and take liberties on what they think should be ordered not what necessarily needs to be ordered.  Often purchasing unnecessary items like wiz bang staplers and expensive usb sticks. To combat this make sure Office orders are done monthly and not every time  someone screams they need another pen, and make sure the order is  approved by a manager/owner first.
  4. Keep an eye out on past subscriptions – Sometimes you might forget certain websites, papers and magazine subscriptions you pay for, it might be that no one in the company even reads or uses them anymore. Keep track of this.
  5. Manage your bank account efficiently – Every time you overdraw on your account or ask for a limit increase you increase your interest rate and get stung by bank and admin fees. Make sure you look into all types of cash flow finance options, a bank loan or overdraft might not even be what you need!

These tips are only just scratching the surface on ways you can save money for your business.

The key is to stay on top of your finances and be aware of what you’re spending your cold hard cash on!

 

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