Small Business Finance Blog

Financial tips and hacks for small business owners

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5 Money Saving Tools For Your Business

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Capital is a business' lifeblood. Sure, ambition and willpower to make it happen both play equal parts. But without money to fuel operations, a business cannot hope to establish a solid base. As a smart business owner, conserving capital spending is essential for continued operations. Below are 5 tools that will help you achieve that and more. Laptops Upfront, laptops cost less than their desktop counterparts. A decent laptop powerful enough to manage payrolls, invoices, spreadsheets, and … [Read more...]

Build your business credit in 4 steps

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How good are you at getting other people’s money? To have a successful business you need to convince customers, vendors, investors and lenders to give you their money.  The last group –serve as a lifeline for millions of businesses. According to the latest research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, U.S. business debt outstanding stands at a record high of nearly $8 trillion. Just because there are trillions of dollars being lent to businesses doesn’t mean that it’s easy to get a … [Read more...]

Defining and measuring unit economics

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Business models can get complicated. The path to growth and profitability isn’t necessarily a straight line. It’s common to change the target market, product or service offering, pricing strategy, cost model and anything else in an effort to boost revenues and profits. With so many changes taking place it’s possible to lose sight of a basic question: how profitable is your business model? You many know how to run a business smoothly but it won’t help if you are in the wrong business. The way … [Read more...]

Investment tracking tools for busy business owners

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The largest and most important investment entrepreneurs can make is the time and money put into their companies. But that shouldn’t be the only investment in their financial lives. Running a business is a risky proposition and the odds of failure are high. If your only source of income and savings is your business and it closes then your entire financial life is ruined and a fresh start could be delayed by years. Most entrepreneurs should complement their risky business with safe investments in … [Read more...]

Pricing complex sales

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Pricing is one of the most challenging decisions that small business owners must make.  It determines revenues and profitability; it communicates value; and ultimately is responsible for the success or failure of a business. Setting a price becomes even more difficult when the company in question is selling something complex that includes both a product and service component. Software that requires upfront integration and ongoing maintenance is a typical example.  These complex sales if priced … [Read more...]

Small business budgeting

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Small business budgets come in many formats, types and degrees of complexity. In most cases though they serve three purposes. The first purpose of a budget is to establish performance targets over a specified period of time. Usually a budget plans for revenues and expenditures on a monthly, quarterly, annual and multi-year basis. Company managers and employees can then devise action plans to achieve the targets provided by the budget. The second purpose of a budget is to measure … [Read more...]

Financial analysis and small business health

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The financial health of a small business is one of the best indicators of its potential for long-term growth and success. The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago recently published the results of its Small Business Financial Health Analysis. The results show that business owners who are knowledgeable about business finance tend to have companies with greater revenues and profits, more employees and generally have more success. The first step towards improving small business financial literacy is … [Read more...]

How to evaluate the Cuba opportunity for small businesses

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Since President Obama announced his intention to restore diplomatic relations with the government of Cuba, there has been tremendous speculation regarding the opportunity for U.S. businesses. Much of this speculation assumes that the law codifying the U.S. embargo will be changed and U.S. companies will be permitted to invest. Many analysts have arrived at the conclusion that Cuba represents a lucrative opportunity for U.S. businesses because: There are over 11 million consumers with nearly … [Read more...]

How to manage small business bookkeeping

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Angus Reid Public Opinion recently conducted a survey of business owners generating up to $5 million in revenues and employing up to 100 people to understand what they like and dislike about running their companies. The worst-ranking task was bookkeeping with 85 percent indicating they dislike it and 46 percent stating it was their least favorite task. The problem is that bookkeeping can be tedious, time consuming and the business benefits aren’t as obvious as those from sales or marketing. When … [Read more...]