Many small businesses find themselves in a financial bind every now and then, and they find themselves in need of assets based lending or account receivable factoring. They may get loans using their equipment as collateral, or they may get an advance on their accounts receivable to help take care of their expenses.
If you’re running your own business, you may find it helpful to use account receivable factoring. But it may also be a very good idea if you keep track of your expenses properly.
Here are some ways you can improve how you track your business expenses:
- Hire an accountant. If there’s one thing that will really help you with your accounting, it’s a professional accountant. You can’t possibly match their knowledge regarding the various tax laws that apply to your business. You can try to do your own research, but that takes away your focus from running your business.
- Always keep your receipts. Receipts serve as handy reminders of what you’ve spent for your business. And they’re also needed for tax purposes. So keep all of them, and make sure that they have the date and time of the transaction. Also write at the back of the receipt or an attached form the reason your business needed the expense.
To make sure you don’t lose your receipts, keep them in a secure place. It may also be very helpful if you get a digital image of your receipts in a computer file as well.
- Keep business and personal expenses separate. That means you don’t use the same credit or debit card for buying business supplies and home furniture. That just makes it more difficult for you to track your expenses. By using a business credit card, then you have a handy way of tracking how much you’ve spent. In addition, you also don’t give the tax people any reason to think that you’re treating your personal purchases as business expenses.
- Update your accounting weekly. Or perhaps you can do it daily. Just set a specific time during which you record your expenses in a computer file. You also take note of deposits you’ve made, client payments, and bank statements.
- Use apps and software. There are several apps and programs you can use so that it’s easier for you to track your expenses. With these apps, you can track the mileage you’ve travelled, your billable time, and your various business expenditures. These apps are available for both iPhones and Android phones, which means you have them everywhere with you.
By tracking your expenses properly, you will discover which expenses aren’t necessary and eliminate them to reduce your total business expenditure.