Helpful Budgeting Tools For The Small Business

There are several factors in a business that can help you create realistic, and therefore more effective, budgets. There are also online services that can assist in tracking finances, thereby ensuring against financial loss due to poor planning. Sites such as QuickBooks, Intuit, and Peachtree (now Sage 50) provide user-friendly and helpful features, including invoicing and check writing assistance, financial reporting, and reliable integration for accounting functions such that no expense stays hidden or overlooked.

In addition, there are also spreadsheet-based tools that provide you with comprehensive business budgeting help.

Following are five tools that should be included in the budgeting process.

1. Sales forecasts and revenue projections

Sales forecasts are an essential tool for budgeting. You can create forecasts by accessing historical data and evaluating past sales figures and expenses. Most businesses have multiple revenue channels. Ideally, you can begin with a Revenue Projection Model to help analyze prices and also assess the outcome with various figures and percentages.

2. Utilizing capital budgeting analysis

If you're considering investing in infrastructure, such as equipment, begin with estimating capital purchases. Your capital budget can also include estimates for service or service processes and procedures. With the help of a Capital Budgeting Analysis tool, you can estimate project costs, while also calculating contributions to the firm's value. The Capital Budgeting Analysis tool functions in an Excel spreadsheet format, while evaluating different project metrics, including profitability index, internal rate of return, and net present value.

3. Tracking expenses with the Expense Budget spreadsheet

Using the Expense Budget spreadsheet, you can determine annual expenses or a budget for annual expenses. Depending on the type of business you operate and the monthly expenses incurred, you can calculate average expenses on a monthly and annual basis.

4. The Cash Flow spreadsheet

The twelve month Cash Flow spreadsheet allows businesses to maintain a cash flow budget to track the amount of cash collected and paid out. This tool compares figures contained in records of income from multiple revenue sources, including sales vs. expenses for business operations. This tool tracks expenses and income, and it presents them in an easy to use format for determining cash flow.

5. The Cash Flow forecast tool

This is a helpful tool for understanding annual profits vs. end-of-year debt figures. The tool can assist in determining which parts of the business are generating more revenue and which parts carry liabilities. Figures provided by the Cash Flow Forecast tool provide insights you can apply in allotting part of future revenue toward settlement of debts. For this reason, this tool also helps businesses create realistic budgets.

Incorporating the above mentioned tools into the budget planning process should allow the process to run smoothly.

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The Company that CPAs Recommend
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Collecting Business Knowledge: The Role of E-Document Management

Knowledge collection and management is a significant part of maintaining business continuity.

Regardless of the size of the business, collection, organization and dissemination of accumulated knowledge and information are critical to both the operational aspects of a company as well as to customer retention efforts.

Without documented processes or a centralized repository for information, knowledge of internal procedures and circumstances, as well as client history, often hinges upon a single employee. If that employee leaves the business, vast amounts of knowledge leave with him or her. Although this can be an issue for large companies, it can be an even greater issue for small to mid-sized companies in which one employee may be responsible for several different functions.

E-document management systems can help address this problem, as they exist as an electronic file cabinet of historical data that can be accessed instantaneously, and often remotely, 24/7.

Additional benefits of collecting and organizing knowledge via an electronic document management system also include:

• Searchable data via text within the documents
• Easy retrieval of electronic files, as opposed to manually having to search and retrieve paper files
• Cost savings due to reduction in paper, file cabinets, and archive locations
• Security on files via password protection or encryption
• Facilitates distribution of documents that outline processes as they can be easily disseminated via email or file sharing servers
• Business contingency planning, as files are electronically backed-up and often offsite via cloud technology

If you are a small to mid-sized company, assess if an e-document management system is right for you in assisting with your business continuity plans.

Analytix Solutions
The Company that CPAs Recommend
Analytix Solutions is a professional full-service business support solutions provider. The company offers comprehensive and scalable accounting and bookkeeping services while leveraging its expertise, experience, and state-of-the-art infrastructure. It offers multiple services in diverse packages for companies that are seeking a trustworthy and professional partner to give their business a head start.

Managing Passwords

As workspaces steadily move into virtual space, and cloud computing becomes a standard practice, passwords become a necessity. With data and information stored in virtual space, access is regulated with the assistance of passwords.

Why passwords?

Passwords are a necessary component for ensuring security for your data and online information. Regardless of work environment, whether employees work remotely or onsite at a corporate office, passwords assist with data protection.

Passwords are a first defense against unauthorized access of data. For this reason, passwords must be strong enough to guard against online hackers, as well. Because volumes of information are now stored online, you need multiple passwords to safeguard different bundles of information. Thus, a different set of passwords may exist for your bank accounts, your system logins and other administrative processes.

Following are some tips for creating passwords:

• Maintain a single password for every application

The sheer number of passwords you need to utilize can make it tricky to remember them all. This may tempt you to maintain a single password for all your needs, which ultimately defeats the purpose of a password. If hackers manage to crack the code, then all of your information is at their fingertips.

• Change your passwords frequently

Some websites, such as banking sites, will force you to change your password periodically. In general, it is a good idea to keep changing them even when you are not prompted to do so. To minimize confusion, some websites and applications also allow a single character change to qualify as a changed password. You can also incorporate changes such as capital letters to make the password stronger.

Here are some tips for managing multiple passwords:

• Choose relatively anonymous passwords

Do not choose names of family members, pets, street, locality, city, etc. Similarly, numbers representing birthdays, anniversaries of family members, the day a pet came home, apartment number or phone number, etc. are all very easy to access and should never be used as passwords.

Instead, choose a combination of this data. The sheer number of combinations should help maintain password security. Hacking is a systematic process. Hackers now have access to specialized software, which when coupled with information can provide strong clues to your passwords. But a judicious mix of numbers and alphabets, mixed in with special characters if allowed, can help your password remain strong. Additionally, most websites that require a password will help you in selecting a strong password.

• Take time to choose or make a password

Do not rush into creating a password. You will simply forget it later and risk getting locked out of vital accounts. If you record your passwords, make certain that it is not apparent to someone glancing at whatever you have written.

• Prepare a backup file for passwords

This can be tricky. If you have too many passwords, it makes sense to record them with the name of the applications to which they provide access. Save this information in a secure place. If the record is made on a computer system make sure it is not created on a shared system.

One suggestion is to record all your passwords on a document and then password-protect it. This way, you only have to remember a single password – the one providing access to that document. However, remember to never leave that document open to view on an unattended computer system.

Assess the strength of your passwords against these suggestions, and revisit making periodic changes to them to ensure security of your personal information.

Analytix Solutions
The Company that CPAs Recommend
Analytix Solutions is a professional full-service business support solutions provider. The company offers comprehensive and scalable bookkeeping and accounting services while leveraging its expertise, experience, and state-of-the-art infrastructure. It offers multiple services in diverse packages for companies that are seeking a trustworthy and professional partner to give their business a head start.