1. Be analytical
It’s important to monitor and understand your business’s finances to avoid any surprises, making data-driven decisions that benefit your business’s future. Create a budget and check your performance against previous years. You can get crucial insights from closely tracking weekly, monthly, and yearly spending and through expense reports, which can help you identify areas in which you can save or even invest.
2. Separate personal and corporate
Keeping track of all your employment expenses as your company grows is essential. Fully separating your business and personal expenses can really help to simplify this process and avoid hours spent sifting through and separating out any personal spend.
It’s not a legal requirement to separate business from personal expenditure, but it is a legal requirement to keep accurate financial records. Finalising and filing accounts and making tax returns for your business requires a record of money spent through company receipts, petty cash, orders, and delivery notes, so it’s essential you have systems which enable you to retain these details.
3. Establish a clear expenses policy
There are many different approaches to staying on top of your expenses. The key thing is to be organised, efficient, and follow a very clear policy that explains what is reimbursable and what is not. Centralising your expense management means it’ll be much easier to control, and you can ensure the policy is applied consistently for everyone. And by looking at the company budget overall you may be able to secure preferential rates with key providers.
4. Pay by card
Most banks and other financial services providers offer real time transaction data and a historical view of all your statements which can be imported automatically into your financial systems. Therefore, it helps to pay for as many things as possible using your bank card so you have a digitalised record that you can access on the go via an app or online. This will become even more important with Making Tax Digital starting to impact more small businesses.
Specialist expense management providers and some banks, such as Zempler Bank, offer business expense cards which enable you to eliminate petty cash, while centrally monitoring individual staff expenses, setting spend limits and blocking certain transaction types.
5. Save receipts
Receipts can be a nuisance to keep hold of but they’re very important when it comes to keeping track of your expenses. It’s possible that they may be requested if you’re audited and if you have them organised then it’ll make the process a lot easier. There are also apps that you can download where you can store your receipts online. Alternatively, your bank may enable customers to upload photos of receipts directly to their mobile app for hassle-free receipt capture and storage.
6. Scope out what your business needs from an expense management system
Expense management software can help simplify the employee expense reimbursement process through automation. When considering an expense management solution, you should know what exactly you need it for, including challenges you’re experiencing in your current expense management processes. Once you’ve fully understood this, you’ll be able to pick the ideal system for you and your business.
If these tips sound helpful to you and relevant to your small business, don’t hesitate and act now. As they say, time is money!
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