Ways to Save Money as a Business Owner
As a business owner, you’re always looking for ways to save money and build financial security. However, you know firsthand how difficult this can be at times. Saving money, despite its simplicity, is one of the hardest tasks to accomplish. To combat this, there are many ways you can build up your financial security with a few of them being something you probably didn’t expect to see. In this article, we’ll be going over a few ways you can save money as a business owner.
Start Automating Your Payments
Automating your payments means the bills and other expenses you have will be paid automatically. This is rather easy to set up as all it takes is a simple phone call to the company. Since one of your duties is to keep track of your finances and manage payroll, setting up an automatic payment can make the process far easier. Another thing you need to automate is payroll. Payroll is probably the most important expense you need to keep an eye on. Mishandling paychecks is going to cause a lot of issues. However, manually calculating and writing paychecks can be very time-consuming. Automating payroll can reduce the risk of an error occurring, ensures your employee’s personal information isn’t in danger and is a lot faster than doing it manually.
Hire Freelancers
Hiring a freelancer can be more cost-effective than hiring a full-time employee. Freelancers are a lot more flexible, allowing you to hire them as needed for certain projects or tasks. Freelancers are masters of their craft, and since you’re running a small business and are looking for someone with specific skills, this is the way to go. You can pay them on a contractual basis rather than a complete salary.
See What You Can Do About Taxes
When you own a business, a lot of your income will be tax-deductible. However, not all expenses are deductible. If you run your business from an office that has its own entrance and doesn’t share any space with living quarters, this portion of your rent or mortgage can be deducted. A great way to get tax benefits is to cosign a student loan through Earnest. By cosigning a student loan with Earnest, it is a great way to save money on your taxes while helping someone afford their college education.
Having a cosigner on board can make it much easier for the student to be approved. You can do this for your employees or even a family member through your business’ name. Keep in mind, however, that cosigning a loan requires a great deal of trust. While the person you’re helping will be the primary on the loan, you will be responsible for the payments should they not be able to.
Don’t Invest Too Much on Advertising
There are a lot of ways to advertise, but most of them aren’t always free. Furthermore, advertising isn’t guaranteed to bring in new clients either, so it’s a little bit of a gamble. Online advertisements, like Facebook or Google Ads, can be pretty expensive depending on how you go about it. The price varies on how many ads you’re putting out as well as how long they’re going to be active. So, you might be wondering how you’ll be able to advertise without spending money. You can find local SEO services to build business but the best way to advertise for free is to take to social media. Social media is what connects everyone around the world and can actually be more efficient than advertisements.
Separate Your Finances
Don’t spend on your personal bank account just because it’s easier or uses money from one account when you meant to use money from another. You’d be surprised how much money is needlessly spent because people don’t separate their personal funds from their business finances. Having both of these intertwined can be overwhelming, especially if you’re still new to the business world. Not to mention, this can cause serious problems with the IRS if they notice discrepancies.
A great way to keep your finances separate, so you know what’s what is to open a business account. A business bank account functions very similarly to a personal checking account. You can make withdrawals, and deposits, and make transactions just like usual. What separates them from regular accounts is that they can only be used in the name of the business. It’s important that you keep your personal and business funds separate.
Negotiate Your Payment Terms
Another important skill for business owners to have is negotiating and it should be used to discuss how you’re going to pay everything off. This is how you’ll get a general idea of when and how much you’ll be paying for your expenses. You can negotiate with suppliers and distributors to see if they give you lower prices when you pay in cash or check rather than a credit card.
This article has been published in accordance with Socialnomics’ disclosure policy.
