Review your business expenses - and save
Binghay Co • Apr 01, 2024
Running a business costs money. There are always costs, overheads and supplier bills that mount up – and these expenses will gradually chip away at your cash position, making it more difficult to grow and make a profit.
So, what can you do to reduce your spend levels? And what impact will this have on your overall margins, profits and ability to fund the next stage in your business journey?
Getting proactive with your spend management
Spend management is all about getting in control of your expenses – and, where possible, aiming to reduce the level of costs and overheads that you incur as a company.
Excessive spending eats into your cashflow, reduces your profit margins and stops you from achieving the profits that you’re capable of as a business. So if you can get proactive with your spend management, you can actually make your company a far more financially productive enterprise – and that’s great for your overall business health.
So, what can you do to reduce spend and slim down your company expenses?
Here are some key ways to reduce expenses:
- Reduce your overheads – your overheads are the unavoidable costs of running your business, producing your products or supplying your services. If you have bricks and mortar premises, these overheads will include rental payments, utility bills and the cost of paying your staff. Drill down into the numbers and see where there are opportunities to reduce these overhead costs. That could mean moving to smaller premises, or reducing the size of your workforce, to reduce payroll expenditure.
- Put limits on staff expenses – if your employees can claim expenses, or buy raw materials and equipment with the company’s money, these costs can soon start to rack up. It’s a good idea to put a spending limit in place, so each staff member can only spend up to an agreed amount. Having a clear expenses policy helps, as will training up your staff in good spend management techniques. Expenses cards or expense managment software will allow you to quickly set spend limits, track expenses and pull your expenses data through to your cloud accounting platform for processing.
- Look for cheaper suppliers – if you can reduce your supplier costs, this will go a long way to bringing down your overall spend. If you’ve been with certain key suppliers for years, look around for new quotes, look at current market prices and see if you can negotiate better deals. And if your old suppliers aren’t flexible enough, try swapping to newer, more eager suppliers who will be willing to meet you in the middle on price.
- Make your operations leaner – the bigger your operational costs are, the less margin you’ll make on your end products and services. One way to resolve this is to aim for a ‘lean approach’, paring back your staff, resources and operational complexity to the bare minimum. By making the business as lean as possible, whilst still delivering the same output, you keep your revenue stable, but reduce the spend level that’s eating into your cost of goods sold (COGS). The smaller your COGS, the more profit you make on each unit or sale – and that means better cashflow, more working capital and bigger profits.
- Explore tax reliefs – you might assume that tax costs are an unavoidable expense when running your business, but it’s worth exploring which tax reliefs, grants or other business benefits you may benefit from. For example, research and development (R&D) tax credits that help cut your corporation tax expenses if you can demonstrate that you’re involved in innovation and groundbreaking R&D within your industry or specialism.
Talk to us about improving your spend management
If you’d like to get in control of your expenses, we’d love to chat. We’ll review your current costs and will highlight the key areas where expenses can be cut. Then we’ll help you formulate a proactive spend management programme, to reduce your unnecessary spending.
If you want to learn more about this topic and how we can help your business, contact us to set up a FREE consultation so we can get started.
Binghay & Co are Accountants & Business Advisors located in Docklands, Melbourne.
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I n today's digital times, you're probably used to having unrivalled access to your financial numbers, key performance indicators (KPIs) and cashflow metrics. Without good bookkeeping, the speed and quality of your reporting can quickly fall down. So, why is fast and accurate bookkeeping so important? And what are the main bookkeeping tasks that your business should be getting right? The financial importance of good bookkeeping Bookkeeping is a fundamental part of your financial process as a business. Without it, your accounting software has no financial data to work with, your data doesn’t have the most current numbers, and your accountant can’t see the current financial health of the business. Inputting your financial transaction into some f orm of record-keeping system is also a mandatory commitment if you’re a registered business and paying goods and services tax. Bookkeeping is what provides you with a historic breadcrumb trail of your finances – allowing you to track your cashflow, revenues and profits over a given period. How to maximise your bookkeeping So, bookkeeping is a vital part of your financial management. And the key to having your transactions recorded, available for reporting and accessible whenever you need them. But how should the bookkeeping process work, in an ideal world? Let’s walk through the core bookkeeping steps and how you can get the most from this financial admin task. To keep on top of your bookkeeping: Scan all financial paperwork – the initial part of the bookkeeping process is to scan and record all receipts, invoices and remittances. This gives you a digital copy of the paperwork that relates to your income and expenses – important when you get around to filing tax returns and expense claims etc. Record all transactions immediately – getting your transaction recorded and in the books ASAP is vital. This includes recording both your income and expenses, as soon as they occur, and matching them with the scanned paperwork. This not only helps you stay organised but also means your financial data is always up-to-date and can provide real-time reporting and numbers. This can be a huge help when running the business. Categorise transactions accurately – when recording transactions, make sure you’re accurate and categorise each item correctly. Not only does this remove the potential for errors and miss-keying in your books, it also helps you track your spending and income more accurately, so your reports are an honest reflection of your financial health. Reconcile your accounts regularly – reconciliation is the process of matching your transactions (both income and expenses) against your bank statement and other financial statements. It’s a key part of your bookkeeping and should be done regularly, to ensure that your balances are correct and that your records are totally up to date. Use a cloud-based accounting system – bookkeeping doesn’t involve books (ledgers, in accounting-speak) anymore. In the digital world, you can use cloud-based accounting software, like MYOB, to record your transactions and access your financial data in the cloud from anywhere, at any time. This makes it easier to keep on top of your numbers when out of the office. Outsource your bookkeeping to a professional – yes, you can do your own bookkeeping. But there’s a LOT of value to delegating all the hard work to a professional bookkeeper. If you don't have the time or expertise to manage your bookkeeping yourself, outsourcing is a smart move. A bookkeeper will make sure your books are always accurate and under control. Plus, they can produce cashflow statements, revenue forecasts and other reports to help your business decision-making. Talk to us about outsourcing your bookkeeping With today’s cloud accounting software, bookkeeping is a far less tedious task than it used to be. But it’s still a regular, time-consuming job that can take you away from running the business. If you’re thinking about outsourcing your bookkeeping, and freeing up that admin time, we’d love to talk to you. Our outsourced bookkeeping service will take on your bookkeeping tasks, to streamline the whole process. We’ll also introduce you to automated data-entry tools that make snapping receipts and scanning invoices a breeze. Let us do the books, so you can get back to talking to customers and winning work
