168: Create A Simple Budget Whether You Are Starting A Business Or Side Hustle, A Solopreneur, Entrepreneur, Mompreneur, Freelancer, Bookkeeper, Virtual Assistant, Business Owner, Or Self-Employed
168: Create A Simple Budget Whether You Are Starting A Business Or Side Hustle, A Solopreneur, Entrepreneur, Mompreneur, Freelancer, Bookkeeper, Virtual Assistant, Business Owner, Or Self-Employed
I’ve been getting quite a few messages from business owners saying that they are struggling to create a budget for their business. Some are just getting their business up and running, and others have been in business for a few years. Either way, having a budget for your business will allow you to dictate how you want your money coming in and out of your business to flow. When you don’t have a budget, it is easy to lose track of your numbers or your goals for the year. I often hear business owners say it is hard to create a budget or they don’t know where to start. In today’s podcast episode, I am going to dive into how you can easily create a simple budget for your business and how you can get started. It doesn’t have to be hard, and it doesn’t need to take a long time when you know what you need to do in the first place. So, whether you are using a computerized software system like QuickBooks, Xero, Wave, or FreshBooks for your business finances, or if you are doing your bookkeeping manually with an Excel spreadsheet or even a Google Document, knowing how you can create a simple and easy budget for your business will help you stick to your goals and allow you to track exactly how close you are to your original budget numbers. Whether you are starting a business or side hustle, you’re a self-employed individual, a solopreneur, entrepreneur, mompreneur, freelancer, small business owner, a remote, virtual, online, or in-house bookkeeper or accountant, a virtual assistant or VA, or other professional; you want to take the time to really look at your numbers, create a budget and use your budget as a compass to help guide your finances throughout the year…
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Show Notes:
I’ve been getting quite a few messages from business owners saying that they are struggling to create a budget for their business. Some are just getting their business up and running, and others have been in business for a few years. Either way, having a budget for your business will allow you to dictate how you want your money coming in and out of your business to flow. When you don’t have a budget, it is easy to lose track of your numbers or your goals for the year. I often hear business owners say it is hard to create a budget, or they don’t know where to start. In today’s podcast episode, I am going to dive into how you can easily create a simple budget for your business and how you can get started. It doesn’t have to be hard, and it doesn’t need to take a long time when you know what you need to do in the first place. So, whether you are using a computerized software system like QuickBooks, Xero, Wave, or FreshBooks for your business finances, or if you are doing your bookkeeping manually with an Excel spreadsheet or even a Google Document, knowing how you can create a simple and easy budget for your business will help you stick to your goals and allow you to track exactly how close you are to your original budget numbers. Whether you are starting a business or side hustle, you’re a self-employed individual, a solopreneur, entrepreneur, mompreneur, freelancer, small business owner, a remote, virtual, online, or in-house bookkeeper or accountant, a virtual assistant or VA, or other professional; you want to take the time to really look at your numbers, create a budget and use your budget as a compass to help guide your finances throughout the year…
Welcome Back… When you hear the word budget, how do you feel? Do you feel like creating a budget would be too hard? Do you feel budgets are difficult to understand? Do you feel like your business is too small to even have a budget? Well, today I am here to tell you that you don’t need to think creating a budget is hard or difficult to understand, and even if you have a small business, it is recommended that you still do a budget to keep you on track.
First, let’s start off by talking about what a budget actually is. A budget is simply a projection of how you would like to see your money coming into and out of your business. It is a plan for how much you are anticipating your income and expenses during a certain period of time.
I understand that just getting started with a budget when you don’t really know how or what you should be doing can be a bit frustrating. Today, you are going to get some tips to easily create a simple budget for your business that will help you stay on track for the year, and right now is the best time to make sure you have this budget in place so that you can start the new year off on the right path.
Budgeting doesn’t have to be hard, and just like anything you do for your business, the hardest part is to just get started. The first thing I want you to do for your business is to make sure that you have your bookkeeping up to date so that you know what your income statement or your profit and loss report is for this last year. If you don’t have your bookkeeping up to date, this will be the first thing you want to work on. You will need to have this information available to you anyway when you get your tax return done, so why not get it done now so that you not only know how your year is going so far, but you are also able to utilize this information to set up your budget for the next year. If you don’t feel like you can get your bookkeeping up to date, you may need to hire a bookkeeper to help you with this. I recommend you have your bookkeeping done on at least a monthly basis so that you can make sound business decisions based on your financial information. If you need help with your bookkeeping, I’d be happy to help you make sure you have this task covered in your business.
The next step is to take your income statement or profit and loss report and use these numbers to help you create your budget. You don’t have to start from scratch if you have been in business, and you have already incurred income and expenses. It is much easier to take a look at what has happened in the past and work on those numbers to get your new budget in place. I recommend looking at your income statement or profit and loss report by month so that you can see the breakdown of your income and expenses by month. If you are using a computerized software system like QuickBooks, it is easy to export your income statement or profit and loss report into a spreadsheet like Excel and then work on your budget numbers right in that spreadsheet. If you don’t use a computerized software system, you can always use your latest income statement and create your budget on a piece of paper. It doesn’t need to be fancy; you just need the budget to reference how you are doing throughout the year.
Let’s take, for example, you are looking at your income statement or profit and loss report, and you need to budget for your insurance. You may see on your income statement that you have incurred insurance expenses of a specific amount each month, or maybe you are paying your insurance expenses every six months or once a year. By looking back at your income statement, you will know exactly when you are going to incur these expenses again. Now, the only thing you need to do is to adjust these numbers for the upcoming year. If you think the expenses will be going up, your budget will need to reflect this higher expense. If the expenses will be going down, you can enter those lower amounts in your budget in the exact month or months you know you will be incurring your expenses.
Continue with each and every income and expense item you have on your income statement or profit and loss report. Once you have gone through each item, and you have adjusted the amounts to what you are anticipating for the next year, you have created your new budget. This doesn’t sound too hard, does it? Now that your budget is created, you can compare your actual amounts to your budget. I recommend looking at this on a monthly basis again. When you do this, you can see if you are over or under spending in a certain area, and this will help you to make any adjustments throughout the year to keep you on track for meeting what you have budgeted for the year.
You might be thinking that this is all simple and easy, if you have been in business already and you have an income statement or profit and loss report to look back on, but what if you are just starting your business, and you don’t have any data to look back on? Well, then all you need to do is grab that piece of paper and start by estimating where you think your income will be for the upcoming year. Once you do this, you can then work on all the expenses you believe you will incur as well as when you will incur them. I know this may seem a little harder to do, but I want you to know that your budget doesn’t need to be perfect from the start. You can always revise your budget along the way. Don’t look at your budget as something that is set in stone, and if you don’t meet your budgeted numbers that, you’ve failed. Look at your budget as a guide for what you’d like to see in your finances and easily make adjustments along the way. There are always going to be events that change or cause your business to pivot. Knowing that you can be flexible with your budget will help alleviate the stress from thinking that you need to get everything exactly right from the beginning.
By utilizing the tips in this podcast episode, you can easily create a simple budget for your business. If you have any questions about creating a budget for your business, you know you can always reach out to me by going to www.FinancialAdventure.com/Contact-Us. I personally respond to all my emails, and I love helping business owners out. Imagine having a system in place where you spend less time buried in paperwork and more time doing what you love. That’s where I help my clients. They are able to have proper processes in place, understand why they are following through with these processes, and they have more peace of mind when it comes to their business. Striking a balance between the demands of running a business and maintaining a fulfilling personal life is an art; it’s about creating an environment where you can thrive and support your lifestyle. By being proactive and setting up efficient processes, you can ensure a smoother, more enjoyable year-end, and you’ll be prepared to file any necessary filings with the IRS. By working with me, you’ll change more than just your bookkeeping processes. Like many of the clients I’ve worked with, you’ll go from not knowing how to get through all the stressful situations or being unprepared to being totally in control of exactly what you are choosing to get done at the time you want to have it accomplished by, all while knowing you are doing enough and you’re able to enjoy your business and your personal life. I help clients just like you with strategy, mentorship, and coaching. When you work with me, you’ll show up much more differently than you do today, and, after all, this is what you ultimately want in your life, right? You can be stress-free in both your professional and personal life. Come join me. I have a special holiday offer available for you to work with me on a one-on-one basis from now through the end of the year for a one-time payment of $197. I know the holidays, running a business, keeping up your professional life, and enjoying your personal life can be hard. There’s a lot to accomplish in a short amount of time. You can email me at Info@FinancialAdventure.com to get this offer or email me from the www.FinancialAdventure.com website. This offer is only for this upcoming holiday season and will be going away soon. If you are listening to this podcast after the holiday season, don’t worry; I’m still here to help. When I work with clients throughout the year, they are able to reduce their stress and overwhelm, understand how to master their small business finances, develop solutions to grow their bottom line, and create a work-life balance they truly enjoy. I encourage you to take the next step by signing up for a free consultation where I’m going to teach you the first step in my process so that you can eliminate stress, overwhelm, or overworking in your professional or personal life while you continue to get done what matters so that you can live your life with joy, purpose and a more fulfilled life. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions you have; I’d love to help you on this journey. You can schedule your free consultation or sign up for a coaching session today at www.FinancialAdventure.com. As a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Life Coach, I can help you set goals and develop a plan that will allow you to lead a happier and more sustainable life in your business, career, or your personal life. I’m here to guide you through the financial aspects of your business as well as help you focus on the strategies you need to follow to reach the success you want to achieve in your professional or personal life and stay committed so that you can continue to keep pushing forward and relieve the stress, anxiety, or overwhelm you are currently feeling. Having an accountant and certified life coach like me can provide you with valuable insights and ideas to help you simplify your life, which enables you to go back to enjoying your professional and personal life. I work with business owners, accountants, and other financial professionals to create the actionable steps they need to take to ultimately achieve their goals while getting relief from the stress and overwhelm they feel from the pressure of owning a business, deadlines, and the workload they face every day. If you are struggling with this as well and would like some help developing a solution, help strengthen and maintain your emotional health, increase your well-being, create a more positive, happy, and joyful life, set and achieve your goals, and manage your relationships, I’d love for you to join me in my Balance Life Coaching program so that you can live a more purposeful life. Each week, we meet privately one-on-one, and you get to bring whatever is on your mind on any given week. I also have a daily coaching program where you can talk to me whenever it works best for you, 24/7, any day of the week. In either program, you get to work on your highest priority, whatever you want more of in your life, or if there is something that is weighing on you heavily that you need coaching on, and we’ll work through it together. Having a certified life coach like me helping you through all of this allows you to feel so seen and cared for, and the results are amazing. Everyone benefits when they work with a certified life coach. After every session, you feel energized, and you know exactly what to do for the day or week to come, and relief knowing we will meet again to go over anything that comes up after your session. You’ll gain self-awareness while you take each step toward your goals. The investment in either of these programs is an easy yes for you. I’ve set these programs up in the most supportive way. If you are ready to join the Balance Life Coaching program, you can go to www.FinancialAdventure.com and click on the work with me button. You’ll see the link to join as well as additional information about the programs. Sign up now. There are limited spots available for these programs due to the one-on-one aspect, and they do sell out. If the payment link is gone, you can get on my waitlist to join the programs when additional spots are available. I help people get results and live a more joyful life. I coach everybody on everything. I know there is something you want in your life, and I can help you get it. I know this is something you’ve been waiting for. I’ve been asked by many of my listeners to create these exact programs. The faster you get access to the program, the quicker you’ll see the possibilities available to you. I also have a risk-free guarantee. I believe so strongly that everyone benefits from coaching that when you sign up for the Balance Life Coaching program today, if for any reason you are not satisfied with your first session, you can send us an email, and we’ll refund you immediately. Are you ready to enjoy your life now? Why would you want to wait? Make this investment for yourself. Take the journey with me…make it happen for yourself. Ask yourself why you need this program in your life right now. Are you ready to make bigger, bolder, stronger life goals? I’m looking forward to meeting with you soon and digging deeper to see where you currently are in your business or career and start creating actionable steps so that you can reach your vision and goals for the future, not only in your business or career but also in your personal life. I’m ready to work with you, see all of your successes, and watch you thrive in your business or career while creating your best work-life balance. I’ll post links to this and other valuable resources for business owners and accountants where you are listening to this podcast.
And, you know I’m going to ask…what’s at least one thing you will take away from this episode that will help your business succeed and grow your bottom line? If you need some accountability, join our PRIVATE Facebook community and post your action item, we’d love to support you.
