I don’t know anyone who likes to budget. I’m a CPA and I don’t like budgeting. I, like most business owners, like to dream of the day when I have enough cash in the bank that I don’t have to worry about budgets ever again.
But for most of us, that is just a fantasy. No matter how big your business is, you will need to budget. That’s why I feel that doing my budget is the key to running and growing my business. My budget allows me to:
- Make sure I collect my receivables on time.
- Be sure that I do the work required to keep my monthly outsourcing clients happy.
- Track pending prospect proposals while seeing how much closing the deal means to my ending cash flow.
- See the effect of customer prepaid plans.
- Plan the workflow of my extended returns.
- Estimate the total income from current work.
- Detail all my monthly bills so I can compare that to what is actually spent. This helps me control expenses and helps me live within my means.
- Identify the large cash expenses. This forces me to look for ways to control costs.
- Review ways for cutting expenses.
- Identify future cash shortages and plan how to handle them.
- Identify possible new products, customers, and partnering opportunities and calculate their effect. This helps me stay motivated to work on the important projects rather than just putting out fires in my office.
These factors are why I spend so much time and energy working on my budget. In fact, I simply don’t know how any business owner can run their business without a budget.
Watch the screen capture below for a more complete discussion of how I use my budget to manage my business. Then start working on your budget now so you won’t be surprised by future cash problems ever again.