6 Simple Tips That Will Help You Track Your Business Expenses Better
In an effort to manage your financials on a weekly and monthly basis, tracking your expenses is smart because it helps you understand how much you’re spending and if you need to cut back on non-essential expenditures. When it comes to owning a business, expense tracking is ten times more important because it can mean a lot to the company’s growth and the livelihood of everyone working there. Not keeping tabs on how much money is going out of the business will lead to difficult situations, especially when it comes to taxes and reaching financial goals. If you want to know more about how to monitor your expenses, read on to learn about these 6 simple tips that can help owners track their business expenses efficiently.
1. Hiring a Competent Bookkeeper
One of the biggest mistakes that business owners make is not delegating some of their tasks to streamline the business process. Tracking expenses has to be delegated to allow you to focus on other activities to help the company grow. A bookkeeper’s skills are worth the cost because they can keep the business from going bankrupt, prevent issues with the IRS, and avoid legal liability. They will maintain your company’s financial records, document transactions, update statements, and ensure accuracy with minimal errors.
2. Utilizing Software and Technology
Every company should utilize software programs and technology to streamline the process of tracking business expenses. Investing in an accounting software subscription can be tax-deductible as well, making the decision appealing and effective. The financial specialists and app developers at keepertax.com explain that applications can keep things organized, and they connect automatically to financial accounts. The nature of technology and software will save you time, effort, and money, which will help you cut back on unnecessary expenses and find your tax write-offs easily. Software and applications allow you to categorize every transaction and keep all of the company’s expenses in one organized place.
3. Keep and Organize Receipts
Organizing receipts for business-related transactions is smart and should be kept in a file that categorizes them by month. Not only is keeping receipts good for tracking expenses, but they can also come in handy if your company gets audited for tax purposes. Business owners can choose several ways to store their business receipts, but the best one is to digitize them. Having a digital backup of your receipts is important because it makes your bookkeeper’s life easier. The IRS will appreciate it as well because it keeps the process streamlined and effortless for them. Consider investing in a receipt scanner to help you have a backup of your receipts.
Moreover, if you’re juggling not only financial documents but also piles of resumes as your business grows, consider investing in a resume parser. This advanced software can significantly reduce the time and effort it takes to sift through resumes and pull out the relevant information. Similar to how a receipt scanner digitizes and organizes your financial paperwork, a resume parser can streamline your recruitment process, making it quicker and more efficient.
4. Avoid Mixing Personal and Business Expenses
Another mistake that business owners make is mixing personal and business expenses. These financials must be separate because it will be extremely difficult to track and they can cause severe problems during an audit. Business owners and entrepreneurs must have separate bank accounts for their personal and company expenses and should be carrying two different credit cards as well. Keeping them separate will make it easy for your bookkeeper’s to track expenses correctly and it will not lead to problems during tax season.
5. Review Business Expenses Regularly
When you track business expenses, consider reviewing them every week to ensure that your earnings are more than your expenditures. Checking the books and having your bookkeeper present a clear report will help you know that business is going well and as planned. Ensuring that company expenses appear in good standing will decrease the risks of unpaid invoices or bounced checks. The frequent reviews can be an excellent way to cut back on expenses that your business can live without, maximizing profits efficiently over time.
6. Record Every Expense Immediately
It’s not uncommon that owners forget about business-related purchases and that’s why every expense must be recorded on the day it happens. Logging expenses as soon as the purchases are made is the diligent and smart approach that minimizes accounting errors. It prevents possible liability issues and every expense should have a description for context to understand why it was made. Consider doing this digitally with the help of technology and software programs to save time.
Every business owner or entrepreneur should step up their organizational efforts in tracking their company’s expenses. Implementing a solid and effective system to monitor the money going out compared to the money earned can help the company expand and grow. A tracking system can protect you from liability and issues with the IRS as well, preventing your company from getting into a tough financial situation. The key is to keep business and personal expenses separate while delegating certain tracking tasks to other people. Taking this route will minimize errors and mistakes that can ruin a business’s finances.
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