Focusing on financial issues is always a good idea when it comes to your business. Whether you’re a startup or you’re an established company with a lot of customers, there’s never a bad time to invest in money-saving solutions or to cut out expenses that aren’t necessary.
Image Source- Outsourcing
One of the biggest money saving tactics for a small business is to outsource various parts of your business. It could be a website design, accounting or even just having a logo created, whatever the job is there’s probably a very capable person out there who you can outsource the work to. Managing your website is perhaps one of the most time-consuming activities you could involve yourself in. Managing a website involves answering feedback, managing social media, maintaining quality and keeping it up-to-date with relevant content.
Most people don’t realise how much time it takes to manage a website, but thankfully there are professionals who will do it for you, save you time and ultimately money. Outsourcing also helps cut costs. Instead of hiring an employee for a long contract period, you can save money by hiring a freelancer to do a job. You simply pay them, they get the job done, and the contract is over.
- Office Costs
One of the most expensive office costs is the price of printer ink. If you regularly use a printer to make physical copies of documents, then you’ll understand the pain in ordering expensive branded cartridges that don’t last very long. If you want to save costs, trust in third-party manufacturers and recycled printer cartridges. If you’re lucky, some cartridges can be refilled with ink using special tools. This can save you a lot of money in the long run, so consider other options before you splash out on hundreds of printer ink cartridges.
Another way to save money is to use free software and cloud software. Packages like Office 365 cost a lot of money, but you can cut those costs by using free software such as LibreOffice or Google Docs instead. These alternate options might lack some features, but if all you’re after is word processing, then they are more than suited for your needs. For photo editing and images, you can use a software package such as GIMP which is open source and free, compared to Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite which can get extremely expensive.
- Tax Advice
Many businesses around the world pay more tax than they should be on a yearly basis, and the relevant authorities don’t seem to be too keen on paying that money back. You could own a small business or you could be the head of a large corporation, either way, there are plenty of ways you can get tax saving advice for business to help you cut the yearly costs that eat away at your profits. It usually involves hiring the right accountant that is qualified to handle your tax return forms, but they should also be able to offer you tax planning advice and other tips on how to get the most out of your business.
Switch away from cloud accounting software or outsourcing your accounting. You will have to spend more money, but it ultimately improves your business to have a dedicated accounting working in-house with your business. If you are self-employed, you can even claim a portion of your living expenses to be exempt from tax. For example council tax, insurance, utility bills and even general household repairs as long as you work from home and they benefit your business.
- Prepare for the Worst
One of the most devastating and money-consuming incidents that can happen to your business is a failure. Hardware failures are very common in businesses due to how vulnerable computer systems are to hackers and faults. If you aren’t prepared for system failures, hardware failures or security breaches, then you could cost your company thousands in repair costs and recovery fees. These situations can’t always be avoided, but they can be prepared for.
A common way to keep your data safe is to use cloud backups. By uploading your data and important information to the internet, there’s no risk of the data being lost due to a fire or natural disaster, and you can safely continue working while the system automatically updates any changes. This also prevents the need for expensive recovery and repair costs should something fail, and you could even completely remove the need for physical hardware if you can work solely with a cloud storage solution.
