As the manager of a small business, there are many things that you have to keep your eye on. From managing your employees and ensuring they are fulfilling their roles to making sure that all customer service matters are being seen to in a timely manner, keeping your company running smoothly is no small thing.
In addition to all of the other tasks that fall under the umbrella of your responsibility is that of managing and tracking your business’s expenses. Failure to manage this aspect of your business properly can result in some major issues down the line.
Bear in mind the fact that managing your business’s expenses and spending is not a one dimensional task. Rather, there are many aspects of your business’s finances that you need to see to on a routine basis.
With that in mind, if part of your job is to oversee and track your business’s expenses, these are some of the most important aspects of that job that you should remember.
VAT
VAT, or Value Added Tax, can be a tricky thing to keep track of when it comes to your business’s expenses. In broad terms, this is a tax that is levied on the price of a product or service at different stages of the manufacturing and selling process. You will need to keep tabs on your VAT in order to properly report things on your taxes at the end of the tax year.
Because this type of tax is assessed incrementally, some businesses find it difficult to keep track of. The good news is that programs like QuickBook’s MTD Software for VAT makes this job easier and simpler than ever before. You can digitise your records and keep track of VAT in an effective and efficient manner going forward.
Compliance
As you go about your job of managing and running your small business, the word “compliance” is one that you will become incredibly familiar with. You need to ensure that your employees and processes are compliant with industry standards. You also need to make sure that you are compliant with all financial reporting obligations.
In order to do this effectively, you will need to be able to keep track of your spending in real time. This will make it easier for you to report your spending to the proper channels as and when the time comes for you to do so.
Budgeting
No business can function properly without a realistic and effective budget in place. Even though budgeting is really just estimating using all of the information available, you should look to create a detailed and organised budget that you and all your staff can abide by.
Take the time to evaluate your finances up until now to figure out just where your money is and should be going. Your budget should be designed in such a way that allows you to accomplish what needs to be done at your company without cutting corners with regard to quality and customer service.
