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Starting your own business is a long-held pipe dream for many people. But in order to get your start, you’re going to need more than just luck, talent and determination – you also need cash.

Even for Internet-based companies with relatively small overheads other than a website and some cheap Wifi , a little cash cushion is necessary to get the idea off the ground or to support yourself and the business before you hit profitability.

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Saving For Entrepreneurs

Of course, you will probably need to find other sources as well – crowdsourcing, angel investors or a bank loan are all popular routes – but having the tenacity to save and invest some of your own money makes things a lot easier, and even demonstrates to potential financiers that you have the work ethic and drive to make your business happen.

Learning how to consistently save is a matter of discipline and habit. It can feel hard at first, but you have to retain a sense of perspective – is a year or so of hardship a good trade-off for realizing your dream, having the freedom to work for yourself and building something for your future? If so, then read on…

Go Card Free

Spending on little extras these days is ridiculously easy thanks to contactless and phone payments. You can go for months without ever touching cash, and this can be dangerous if you’re the sort of person who spontaneously splurges on those irresistible must-haves – that muffin with your morning coffee, or those must-have new boots.

It doesn’t feel tangible simply waving your phone or tapping your card, and for that reason, it’s easy to overspend. Unplanned purchases are generally unnecessary one’s top, especially if you suffer from poor impulse control.

Make it easy on yourself by taking out a cash allowance each week and leaving your cards at home. It’s much harder to overspend, as the act of getting that cash out of your purse itself can make it all seem real, and give you a moment of vital cooling off time to reconsider if your really need what you’re about to buy.

Cook From Scratch

The number one overspending category for most people? It’s eating out. Not just the restaurant dinners but the mid-week takeaways, pre-packaged lunches and daily coffees – they seem small at the time but they quickly mount up.

Get into the habit of preparing food from scratch at home and using Tupperware containers to take lunch and snacks with you. Not only is it much healthier without all the added sugar, salt and chemicals in most ready meals, but it can save you a fortune.

Identify your worst food purchasing habit and plan ahead to avoid it. 3 pm sugar slump? Pack a paleo bar and an apple and have a snack with you so you don’t raid the vending machines.

Got home late and don’t want to cook? Set aside an hour or so on a Sunday to batch cook, portion up, and freeze some dinners so you always have something tasty and home cooked to pull out and heat up.

It was nice of you to stop by.

Remember, if you need help, you can ask me by clicking here

Until then, happy hiring, and best wishes for your business.

◊This is a contributor post.◊

Don’t forget to check the sidebar and footer of this website for awesome resources!

Photo Credit: Haute Stock

 

How are you from the last time you read my blog?

If you are new, welcome to my blog!

◊This is a contributor post.◊

There’s no way to sugar coat this so I’ll just say it – anyone who runs their own business just has to get organised. I understand you might rather concentrate your energy on future planning’ or operations, but it really is worth the time and investment.

Don’t forget to check the sidebar and footer of this website for awesome resources!

So I thought I’d share tips on how to feel more in control and together when it comes to those administrative tasks you might rather delay. And, if you take these on board, it could also mean you free up important time and resources for things you really want to concentrate on.

Manage your desk space and storage

It might sound straightforward but before you get started, a great tip is to make your physical space neat, clear and functional. This means you can work in the most effective way possible and you, literally, don’t feel that things are getting on top of you.

A place for everything and everything in its place

To start with, make sure everything has its own place, even if that place is in a pile of papers on your desk. If you understand your own system that’s a great starting point – just try to keep at least part of your desk clear.

Plan your social media campaigns in advance

If you’re running a social media marketing campaign on a budget, you need to minimize the time you spend putting information online. Instead of publishing posts every few hours, which is really time-consuming, try to schedule things well ahead of time.

There are lots of tools out there to help you, including Hootsuite , and this simple organizational technique will make you much more productive.

Don’t drown under paperwork

If you feel like you’re drowning under reams of paperwork as an entrepreneur, you’re not alone at all – trust me. In a recent study, small business owners reported that they spend 1-3 hours every day working day on administrative tasks. And nearly half of the people who responded felt like they had to work out of hours to get everything done.

Paperwork may be an unavoidable part of running a business, but a well-organized system can save you a lot of hassle, especially if you need to find something fast.

Here are our top tips for organizing your paperwork, so you can lay hands on any document you want when you need to:

Identify what paperwork you need to keep

The key items you’ll need to keep to relate financial transactions as it’s really important to keep on top of your taxes. These include:

◊ Invoices

◊ Bank Statements

◊ Bills

◊ Expense receipts

◊ Tax documents

If you held all of those documents in paper format it would take up a lot of space, we understand, so definitely consider digitizing them, it’s much more efficient.

Scan your documents and store them securely

All you need to do is invest in an inexpensive scanner and then store your documents somewhere securely. It’s a good idea to keep at least one copy of everything in secure offsite storage, for example on a cloud storage service like Google Drive.

Keep your filing straightforward and simple

If you’re just starting out, you don’t want to make this too complicated – the key thing is that you understand your system and it works. Just start out by using the key items we’ve listed above for each year – then add appropriate subfolders: for example invoice numbers, months, etc.

Then try to keep on top of your filing at least once a week – it’ll pay off in spades and free up more of your time in the long run. And why not give all your invoices a unique reference number while you’re doing it – it’s tax filing requirement so why not do it anyway? Paperwork will then be easier to find and you’ll be getting ahead of the situation, which is always great.

Consider investing in accounting software

If you’ve thought about this before but never quite got round to it, now could be a great time to invest in accounting software .

Even if you’re not affected by any tax changes where you live right now, it’s worth looking into how it could help in future. After all, the main thing we all want to focus on is our business, isn’t it, not lots of complicated tax processes.

How can accounting software help?

Investing in reliable online business tools benefits your company in a whole range of ways, including:

◊ It makes data entry simpler and more efficient – you only need to add data once and it streamlines systems, making processes more efficient.

◊It can speed up other processes and help reduce delays, for example between sales and invoicing.

◊You’ll have the facility to generate reports and analysis easily as this is all automated – eg for profit and loss, debtors and creditors, customer accounts, inventory counts, sales, forecasting, etc

◊Important tasks like calculating pay, producing payslips and calculating VAT are also automated, saving you valuable time and resources.

◊Human error, eg around transposition of figures, incorrect or incomplete recording of transactions, etc is eliminated.

◊The software can be integrated with other systems, such as online banking and e-filing, making your business processes more streamlined and effective.

So, in essence, using this software can help save you time and money, which are two really important commodities when you’re running a business. It also offers valuable insight into your business and, if you choose correctly, it could be a great investment.

And lastly, a few final thoughts

I hope this post has helped clarify why it’s so important to be organized – and stop delaying all that dreaded paperwork. The great thing is, when you feel a bit more prepared, it means you’ve got more time and energy to focus on what you do best.

So why not get ahead of your administration as soon as possible, make sure your company’s ‘future proof’ and most importantly – keep doing business!

It was nice of you to stop by.

Remember, if you need help, you can ask me by clicking here

Until then, happy hiring, and best wishes for your business.

◊This is a contributor post.◊

Don’t forget to check the sidebar and footer of this website for awesome resources!

Photo Credit: Haute Stock