As a business owner, you have to find out a lot of things you’ve never done before. Creating a business budget is one of them.
When you’re just starting your business, it can be a daunting task for you because you don’t know where to find the right financial information—let alone learn business finance jargon—and put all that data together in the right order!
This can be a nightmare for some people. According to a recent study, most small business owners don’t even have the budget to get started. But if you want to be successful, creating the right business budget is an important component of that success.
The process of creating a business budget is not that difficult if done the right way. In this article, we will cover the easy steps for creating a business budget.
Contents
1 How Do You Define a Business Budget?
2 Why Do You Need a Business Budget?
3 How to Create a Business Budget in Easy Steps?
3.1 Check Your Income
3.2 Calculate Your Fixed Costs
3.3 Determine Variable Load
3.4 Set aside Some Emergency Funds for Unexpected Losses
3.5 Create an Income Statement
3.6 Outline Your Future Budget
4 How to Make Your Business Budget More Efficient?
4.1 Using accounting software
4.2 Hire Accountants
4.3 Simplify the budgeting process
4.4 Carry out procedures properly on time
5 Questions You Need to Ask Yourself When Creating a Business Budget?
5.1 Do you know the main drivers of your business growth?
5.2 Do you have the KPIs you need to make data-driven decisions?
5.3 Do you have a handle on your cash flow management?
5.4 Did you revise or review your budget?
5.5 Do you have a written business objective?
How Do You Define a Business Budget?
A budget is a detailed plan that gives you an idea of where you will spend your money each month or year. This will help you estimate how much money you could earn, where to spend that income, and identify the difference between your plan and reality.
Why Do You Need a Business Budget?
You must be wondering why you need a budget in the first place? Well, budgeting is all about making smart guesses about how business finances will look in the future.
By analyzing business performance over the previous months, you can make wise financial decisions for the future.
For example, if you’ve had a bad few months, and you know that the coming months are going to be tough, then you can start minimizing your business expenses wherever possible. On the other hand, if your business is booming, look for similar practices to grow your business.
In other words, you don’t need any magic to run your business, but you do need to know how to create a business budget. This will help you make your business profitable in the long run. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why you need a budget:
- Budgets make your business more efficient.
- This helps to identify the remaining funds that you can reinvest.
- It helps to predict slow months and get you out of debt.
- It plays an important role in identifying how your business can become more profitable.
- It helps in controlling your business.
- You can get an estimate of your future income with the help of a budget.
Running a business becomes easier when you have a good budget on your hands. A business budget helps ensure that you spend your money in the right place, at the right time to stay out of debt.
How to Create a Business Budget in Easy Steps?
Let’s take a look at some steps that can help you budget easily:
Check Your Income
The most important step in creating a budget is to look at your existing business and find out all the sources of income. Once this is done, you can add all the sources together to get a clear picture of the amount of money you earn each month.
Now you need to calculate your earnings for several months, especially for the previous 12 months. With this information, you can have a clear idea of how your monthly income is changing over time, and identify seasonal patterns. For example, your business may experience a downturn after the holidays, or during the summer.
Knowing about these changing seasons can help you prepare ahead of time for such months, helping you get through this phase.
Calculate Your Fixed Costs
Bills and expenses that are constant every month, refer to fixed costs. The second step in the budgeting process involves listing all the fixed costs associated with your business. Rent, equipment, salaries, taxes, insurance costs are some examples of fixed costs.
Determine Variable Load
When figuring out fixed costs, you will find that there are some variable costs as well, which keep changing every month. Shipping costs, travel expenses, utility costs, office supplies, and sales commissions are some examples of variable costs.
When you have higher profits, you can spend more money on variable costs, while as long as profits are lower, you can reduce these costs.
There are some expenses that are not necessary for the operation of your business but can add value to your business, those costs are known as discretionary expenses. For example, the cost of education. These costs can be included in variable costs.
Set aside Some Emergency Funds for Unexpected Losses
Whether you are a newbie or a seasoned entrepreneur, you will realize that there will always be unexpected costs in building a business.
It happens suddenly when you least expect it. You can prevent the fear of unexpected expenses by setting aside a portion of your emergency fund for such incidents.
While you may be thinking about spending your extra income on variable costs, you need to set aside some funds for emergencies. That way, you’ll be prepared for any kind of equipment breakdown or other unfortunate incidents.
Create an Income Statement
After gathering all the information related to income and expenses, it’s time to put it all together to create an income statement.
Now get ready to calculate your net profit or net loss.
Net profit = Total income – total expenses
If the result is positive, then you will get a net profit while if the result is negative, then you have to bear the loss.
Remember that you can’t expect profits all the time. So you need to be prepared for every situation.
Outline Your Future Budget
Whether you are a newbie or a seasoned entrepreneur, predicting what will happen to your business in the future is guesswork.
Once you’ve created an income statement, a historical document that shows the past of your business, it’s time to create your budget.
With the help of an income statement, you will be able to understand your business in a better way by identifying which investments are worth repeating and which ones can be avoided.
In your income statement, make sure you have this information:
- Any large inventory or purchase that results in a loss
- Seasonal trends that affect your business
- Higher profits than the previous year.
For example, if you run a popsicle stand, you’ll notice that higher profits occur in the summer when the kids are out and it’s hot.
When you have a clear idea of your favorable months, it will help you predict what your coming years will be like!
This information can be further used to make important financial decisions, for example, when can you hire more staff to increase profitability?
How to Make Your Business Budget More Efficient?
Everyone can create a budget, but making it efficient is not something everyone can do. Most of the business owners ignore this aspect which results in losses. But how can you make your business more efficient? Let’s look at some budgeting tips:
Using accounting software
Investing in accounting software can be very beneficial for you to track your income and expenses and generate your income statement automatically. the large number of accounting software ranging from paid to free have this feature.
Hire Accountants
A professional accountant can help you manage your budget, and get your business on the right track. He can also make sure that you pay the necessary taxes.
Simplify the budgeting process
Break the budgeting process into small steps — managing a business budget is a lot easier when you do parts of the job from time to time and tackle a little bit each day or every week.
Carry out the procedure properly on time
It is very important that you put all the budgeting procedures in place so that you can easily find the numbers you need and find the money you need.
Not all business owners like budgets and finances. However, budgeting is a part of life when you own a business. So knowing a step-by-step guide to creating a business budget and managing it efficiently will make your job easier.
FAQ’s Questions about a Business Budget?
What Questions Should You Ask Yourself When Creating a Business Budget?
Let’s look at some questions to look at when creating a business budget:
Do you know the main drivers of your business growth?
Knowing the main drivers of your business growth is critical to the constant success of your business. Make sure all of your management team is aware of the key drivers so that a budget can be created accordingly.
Do you have the KPIs you need to make data-driven decisions?
You should be familiar with the financial reports your business produces each month, to allow you to gain insight into the real numbers. In this way, you will be able to increase the performance and profitability of the business.
Do you have a handle on your cash flow management?
Generating profits alone is not enough to guarantee long-term success – cash flow management strategies must be incorporated to increase cash flow in your business. This will help your business grow consistently.
Did you revise or review your budget?
Revising or reviewing your budget is quite important if you want to gain a competitive edge in this industry.
Do you have a written business goal?
You have to be clear with your business goals if you want to achieve success. If you don’t realize your goals, how will your team move forward to achieve them! That’s why having clear written business goals is so important.