With over 42 million small business enterprises in India, it can be said that starting your small business venture is a great idea in today’s world. However, starting any business requires a lot of work. From brainstorming business ideas to creating business plans, financial planning is an integral part of every business activity.
Acquiring initial funding, setting up your business and even your daily operations would require a certain amount of money. This is why it becomes crucial for small businesses to have a business financial plan. Financial planning helps the business to make the right decisions, manage expenses and create risk management plans. You will get to know more about the importance of financial management for small businesses in this article.
Financial Planning, with context to a small business, helps you prepare well in advance for details like revenue, profits and loss, turnover, assets and liability, capital, investments etc. A solid financial plan also helps you to review your financial assets to check the financial health of your business. Checking this information becomes crucial because it helps you outline future operations for your small business.
Creating a business plan is an important task that every small business owner needs to do. And one of the steps in this process is going through the financial planning step. It is during this step they realise the importance of business finance. The financial plan is important for small businesses from several points, such as:
Entrepreneurship is full of uncertainties, and small business owners need to be prepared for any unfortunate events. A business financial plan helps them to cover and manage risks like a hike in prices of raw materials, natural calamities, low turnover etc. And when a small business owner has done the right budget planning, they can solve such issues easily.
Having financial plans helps small business owner set apart their personal and business expenses. Otherwise, the line between personal and business spending can get blurred and owners may make unnecessary expenses from the business budget.
Daily operations and short-term goals keep the business running, but it’s the long-term goals which make a small business venture successful. If small business owners have done the right financial planning, then they can achieve their long-term goals, with enough funds and earn regular revenue.
Small businesses have limited amounts of funds, and they must use that funds wisely. Here arises the need for financial planning, as it helps them control their expenses and maintain necessary cash funds for emergencies.
Small business owners need to keep measuring their progress rate from the initial stage of the venture. Amidst so much decision-making keeping track of progress becomes difficult, however, if there is a proper financial plan for the business it becomes easier to measure the progress of your small business.
Starting your small business venture is not a task for faint hearts, and owners might face several challenges to keep the business running and financially profitable. Some of the financial challenges that small businesses might face are.
The initial stages of a small business see inconsistency in the cash flow, which might lead inability to pay daily wages and day-to-day expenses. And this inconsistency affects the financial health of businesses, that’s why the business financial plan is important.
Starting a business venture for the first time can be confusing, but if you are thinking to be successful in this venture by creating a financial budget, then you’re thinking wrong. Creating a budget is crucial for every small business so that they can limit their expenses, maintain cash funds and review their business progress.
There is no business without risks, and it’s important to be prepared for any unforeseeable events. And when small businesses don’t do financial planning, they are at high risk of losing their assets. Thus, it’s important for maintaining enough cash funds for any emergencies.
Despite so many incentives and programmes launched, small business owners find it challenging to raise capital funds for their small businesses. And limited capital funds hamper their day-to-day operations resulting in a slow business start.
So many small business owners do the mistake of mixing their expenses with business expenses. This practice makes it difficult to monitor the expenses and can harm the business reputation in log-terms. Thus, it’s crucial to understand the importance of business finance and make sure to open a separate business bank account.
Every business requires business planning, and so does the small business. Here are some of the financial planning tips for small businesses to run successful businesses.
Starting a small business can be risky and challenging, before you execute any plans do your research. Talk to fellow small business entrepreneurs, know the risks involved, profit percentage, capital fund needed, operating expenses, and demand of product or service intending to sell. After you have done your research and learned how to do risk management you can go ahead with your plan.
Relining on one funding option is a big mistake that many small business owners make, and you should avoid this mistake. Don’t use all your savings, look out for other funding options. Some of the good funding options for small businesses are crowdfunding, venture capital, pitch competitors or friends & family. This way you will be able to generate large amounts of funds to start.
Documentations and maintaining financial records are an important part of any business, and it becomes more crucial for small businesses. So, before you start working on any deal, draw the right paperwork and mention all your terms & conditions. It is one must-follow rule while doing financial planning.
Maintaining consistent cash flow to the business is crucial, as healthy cash flow enables small business owners to fulfil their duties like paying daily wages and monthly salaries to employees, reserves for emergencies and making investments.
Risks are part of entrepreneurship but being aware of those risks helps a lot. There are five types of risks that every small business owner should be aware of, these risks are credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk, legal risk and operational risk. Once you understand these risks and develop a risk management plan, then you can safeguard your business venture to a much more extent.
Hiring for small businesses can be tricky with the limited budget, but whomever you hire should be qualified for their job, especially financial planning experts. Financial experts should have good knowledge of finance and risk management.
Managing a personal budget might have been a do-it-yourself task for you, but small business finances can be complicated. To manage your business taxes to need to help of experts like CA or CPA who can guide you to save taxes and audit your financial reports.
Reviewing financial records can be time-consuming, but it’s a necessary task to do. Other than your quarterly and annual reviews, you need to do a monthly review of your cash flow, monthly income and expenses, debts etc. So that you can know whether you are on the right path and whether your business financial plan is working or not.
Finance is the core of any business. Small businesses require financial plans to achieve their goals. The main objective of a financial plan is to determine the capital requirement, structure, and framing of finance policies and to generate maximum output. It is a decision-making process in which the business owner or finance manager drafts a finance plan for the smooth functioning of the firm.
Finance planning is important for carrying out smooth operational functioning, fundraising, investing in a profitable project as well as attaining the goal. There are numerous components of financial planning such as profit or loss statement, net income, balance sheet, sales, risk management, operating income as well as cash flow. These components will help to draft a proper monetary plan for the business. Lastly, the major factors affecting the financial planning of small businesses are taxes, spending behaviour, investors, emergencies, financial potential, risk tolerance, etc.
Ans. Financial Planning is important for every business, as it helps business owners to stay focused on their financial goals and be prepared for any unforeseeable events. If a business has a good financial plan, it can keep its operations running and pay its employees on time. Thus, businesses need to understand the importance of business finance and make plans accordingly.
Ans. The main goal of financial planning is the achievement of all your goals. With enough funds and good knowledge of financial management, any business can full its duties towards employees and customers. Financial planning helps in achieving both short-term and long-term goals of the business, with the aspect of earning profits. Because it informs business owners where and how much funds should be allocated.
Ans. Business Financial Planning is a task to determine how a business will achieve its goals and objective with strategic financial planning. Financial plans each activity that a business needs to do along with funds required to complete that task. Creating financial plans also help the business to reserve enough cash funds to make investment and save for emergencies and pay debts (if any).
Ans. There are several factors which can affect the financial planning of a small business. While creating financial plans for businesses, owners must keep these factors in mind to make their plans successful. Some of the major factors that affect financial planning are:
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Chegg India does not ask for money to offer any opportunity with the company. We request you to be vigilant before sharing your personal and financial information with any third party. Beware of fraudulent activities claiming affiliation with our company and promising monetary rewards or benefits. Chegg India shall not be responsible for any losses resulting from such activities.
