How to Keep Better Track of Your Finances

Like many things we know are good for us--exercise, getting a good night's sleep, laying off the French fries--keeping careful track of your business's finances is one of those must-do tasks to keep your business healthy. Nevertheless, a huge number of business owners neglect their numbers, and their businesses pay the price.

I tend to see two main types of financial blow-off:

1. Fully neglecting to track income and expenses by letting receipts pile up (or get lost) and failing to enter data into a bookkeeping system.
2. Doing a decent job of keeping income and expense records up to date, but failing to use the numbers to answer questions about the business's financial situation.

While I've definitely known more than a few business owners guilty of the abject neglect described in item 1 (you know who you are), the second type of financial ignorance is practically an epidemic among owners of small to medium-size businesses. Over and over I hear owners admit sheepishly, "I don't do enough with the numbers." If you merely keep up with the basics, you might avoid true financial disaster. But you'll definitely miss opportunities to thrive if you don't use your data to make strategic decisions.

Getting Over the HumpIf you've had your head in the sand about your business's finances, take heart: You are not alone (by a long shot). Tons--tons--of successful business owners loathe dealing with numbers. They regard financial management with fear, anxiety, insecurity or some combination of the above. Typically, they say they are simply too busy running the business to deal with tracking income and expenses or analyzing the numbers.

The good news is that affordable bookkeeping software automates most of the work, from tracking account balances to generating sophisticated financial reports, putting essential financial information at your fingertips. If you really hate working with numbers or truly don't have the time to do so, have a competent employee or outside bookkeeper do the job.

However, as the owner of the business and the person responsible for guiding it, you do need to be in the know about your business's finances. So if you hire someone to do most of the financial management tasks, make sure you're in the loop and that you understand what the numbers mean. Don't be shy about asking for guidance or mentoring from an accountant or bookkeeper. If you feel insecure about your level of financial knowledge, you're in good company. Just make a sustained effort to learn as you go.

Financial Management in a Nutshell The trick with bookkeeping is to establish a system early to help you stay organized. By "system" I mean a simple process for organizing your receipts and files, as well as having bookkeeping software set up and configured. With a system in place, you'll definitely be able to handle most or all of your bookkeeping tasks, even if you've never done them before. I typically break financial management down into three broad steps.

Doesn't sound too bad, does it? Again, setting up a system will make a huge difference when it comes to entering and categorizing data in your bookkeeping software. With your data entered, you'll be all set to do the important (and actually quite fun) part of financial management: generating reports showing you the financial health (or illness) of your business.

Often, business owners have such poor systems in place they barely manage to get their data entered accurately. It becomes a grueling task--hours spent searching for receipts and trying to decipher poorly documented expense reports--that they stop after the data entry stage and never get around to generating reports. Don't let this happen to you. Generating reports is key to managing your business's finances and making strategic decisions.

Financial reports summarize the data in your bookkeeping system to show you different aspects of your business's financial situation. For example, a profit and loss report compares monthly income to monthly expenses to show whether your business is selling enough products or services to cover costs each month. A cash-flow projection shows similar information, but includes other sources of income such as capital contributions from owners or loans (that is, not just revenue from sales). It also organizes the information slightly differently to show you whether the timing of your income is adequate to pay your bills on time.

The PayoffBy generating reports, you'll be able to see trends and patterns in your business's finances and identify profitable opportunities to pursue. You'll also avoid letting your business simply drift along--or worse, run it into the ground. Here are a just few ways that analyzing your financial reports will help your business:

• You'll be able to price goods and services more competitively, pace growth more effectively and trim costs strategically--for example, you might cut back on travel expenses or outsourced services that aren't helping to generate sufficient income. 
• You may be able to reduce taxes by timing your purchases strategically and claiming all your deductible expenses--things that often escape businesses with disorganized records. 
• You'll be able to manage your business's cash flow, ensuring you can pay important bills on time. Cash-flow management is a critical element in every business. When it's done poorly or not at all, you may find yourself short of cash when it's time to pay taxes, payroll or other crucial expenses. This is exactly the type of scenario that forces businesses to close up shop for good.

Finally, if you're itching to launch your venture and still worried that you have too much to learn in a short time, stop fretting. You don't need to turn into a financial whiz overnight. In practice, I advise every small-business owner to consult at least once or twice during their startup days with an experienced bookkeeper or accountant (or possibly both) to help the business get started on the right foot. For those of you who feel like total novices when it comes to the money stuff, consulting a professional will help you get over the hump of your financial learning curve. There are also lots of useful organizations such as The Association of Women's Business Centers and SCORE that can help get you up to speed.

Peri Pakroo is a business and communications consultant, specializing in legal and startup issues for businesses and nonprofits. She is the author of  The Women's Small Business Start-Up Kit.