Cash rules everything around you when you run a small business. It’s essential to keep everything on the books while looking for places where you can save. Try using these helpful tools to make your small-business finances easier.
Budgeting and accounting tools
Mint is a web-based tool for creating budgets and analyzing expenses on a monthly or weekly basis. While lots of people use it to track their personal finance, it can be used for small businesses to effectively monitor how your corporate cards are really being used.
Cost: Free
Wave accounting software is an easy-to-use alternative to dinosaur accounting software like Quickbooks. It’s a free way to send invoices and account for business expenses, and it’s surprisingly dynamic. Given that Quickbooks Plus is about $50 a month, it’s a great way to keep up to date on bills while saving some cash.
Cost: Free
FreshBooks is another cloud-based accounting software that boasts ease-of-use and a very clean desktop view. It’s also designed with small businesses in mind.
Cost: $50 a month for unlimited Premium plan.
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Receipt tracking
Expensify is helpful for businesses with lots of physical receipts, as it scans, digitizes, and stores receipts effectively to build expense reports. It can save you the trouble of holding onto scraps of receipt paper in perpetuity while giving you peace of mind that every purchase is accounted for. Cost: Plans from $9 a month for business account.
Discounts
The Honey coupon app and browser extension is something everyone should use, not just small business owners. As a browser extension, it combs the web for promo codes you can redeem when making purchases. You can cut down on business expenses significantly if you get a great code. It’s especially helpful if you buy business supplies via Amazon.
Cost: Free
Payments
PayPal is the premier internet payment app that’s been around the block for many years now. It’s perfect for paying contractors quickly and securely while automatically keeping records of all your payments. You should also use its sister app, Venmo, if you have to pay quickly on the go and only have your phone.
Cost: Free to open a PayPal account; however, there are fees associated with many of the business account features.
Square point-of-sale app lets you hook up a card reader to your mobile phone to make purchases and payments quickly and cheaply.
Cost: Square takes a percentage of the purchase depending on the type of transaction and charges fees for their software, so price accordingly.
Investing
Acorns is a creative way to channel unused budget funds toward investing. Essentially the app rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar, investing that change automatically into your stock portfolio. It’s a great tool for freelancers and other self-employed individuals who may lack a traditional retirement investment vehicle, like a 401(k).
Cost: Acorns subscription offers tiered pricing.
For more tips and tools for your small business, check out our business blogs.
