A financially secure small business doesn’t have to be an oxymoron. Sure, there’s inherently some financial risk involved in any business.
And looking after the financial side of your small business can be a complicated process. But that doesn’t mean you’re destined to become just another bankrupt millionaire.
You could start making a small fortune just by protecting your cash flow and practicing smart financial business habits.
Here is how to finance a small business with some critical aspects of building a financially secure business. With that in mind, follow these five tips.
1. Prepare for emergency situations
The thing about emergencies in business is that they’re never planned. A significant debtor could go bust, your roof could collapse in a storm, or a global pandemic could cause a complete infrastructure breakdown overnight.
Or you might even have to split the business up during divorce settlement. And because you don’t know when the next disaster will happen, you should always expect the unexpected by having an emergency fund.
According to most personal financial planners, you should have enough cash to last at least 3 to 6 months. An emergency fund for the next big rainy day might give you the best chance of saving your business or at least relieve some financial stress.
2. Establish a line of credit
While squirreling away emergency cash is essential, it takes time to save it up. But when you own a small business, downturns and cash flow fluctuations are a relatively common occurrence.
A line of credit is essential. That’s why you should establish a line of credit before you get into a situation where you desperately need it. Setting up flexible access to funds can help you keep your small business in the green.
Like a credit card you repay as required, it allows you to prepay your accounts receivable whenever customers fall behind on their payments. It will also help you safeguard all of your business relationships with suppliers, banks, and creditors.
And, this is important because it would be impossible to grow your business without easy access to their resources.
3. Separate your finances
Avoid the dangers of severe financial trouble in the future by clearly separating your business and personal financial accounts.
That means never using the business accounts, and credit cards to pay for any personal expenses, no matter how minor or necessary they may seem.
You should only access your business account for personal reasons when you’re paying yourself your salary, which can also help increase the feeling of separation for you.
By always maintaining separate accounts, you can be sure that even if the worst happens to your business fails, the financial difficulties won’t compromise your savings.
After losing business assets, the last thing you want is personal liability issues for company debts and other legal issues.
4. Spend smartly on growth
While more growth means more of that much-needed cash flowing in, remember that it will also increase your expenses. That’s why you should be smart about growing your business.
Start by creating a clear plan for generating growth based on your risk tolerance and how much you can afford to spend. And instead of creating long-term problems for a short-term fix during a downturn in trade, put an additional focus on your marketing and sales budgets.
Spending big on growth channels is one of the most effective methods of generating new leads and making sales.
5. Focus on profits and collecting debts
While increasing sales growth is always fantastic, remember that turnover means nothing if profits are too low. So, while it’s crucial to increase turnover figures by controlling costs, remember to translate that into profitability.
Produce monthly profit and loss forecasts to identify overheads such as rent or utility rates and ensure they’re set into your pricing structure.
And making profits on paper means just as much if customers never pay your invoices. Ensure your collections processes are streamlined to recover all outstanding commercial debts effectively.
