If in biology, a good diet helps us to keep healthy, in a company, financial planning enhances the longevity and health of the business.
This is an important step, especially for small enterprises, which often have low resources and little maturity in the Mercado of acting.
Early closure is motivated by several factors, including the lack of financial planning and strategic management actions.
Good control of finance allows managers to closely monitor the demands of the trade, anticipating bottlenecks and making effective crisis management.
Thus, comprehensive and preventive financial planning can bring stability and success to your business. Business, taking it out of the bankruptcy risk zone.
What is financial planning, and how does it work?
Objectively, planning involves analyzing the entire financial context of a company: your inputs, outputs, potential billings and potential expenses.
In other words, we are talking about a decisive stage of financial management.
From this, it is possible to predict, for example, how much to sell to maintain the economic viability of a business or use the same strategies for cost reduction.
In this way, the manager can develop actions that will support the decisions taken in the planning.
To be good and efficient, planning must be continuous and comprehensive, and none of the essential operations of financial management can be forgotten, such as product pricing and/or the management of accounts payable and receivable.
7 tips to improve your business’s financial planning
Below, we list the operations financial essentials and how to optimize them in the day-to-day of your business. Check it out!
Cash flow
Cash flow is the starting point for a healthy financial routine.
With this instrument, you can follow all the inflows and outflows of resources in your company.
Performed periodically, this operation allows a business (physical store or commerce) to rely on an accurate analysis of finances, making projections and estimates.
To be efficient within your financial planning, financial projections for startup needs cash flow continuity to avoid failures that can be costly, especially for a small business.
Without this follow-up, the chances of a deficit financial are significant, leading to a loss of control of the business.
With this monitoring of inputs and outputs, the entrepreneur also has an essential tool that allows decisions to be taken in advance.
And the good news is that all this control can be automated with the advancement of technology.
With Maven Business Plans, for example, you have access to a free tool you can control your cash flow safely and without difficulties.
See some of the benefits:
- Import of bank statement;
- Bank account registration;
- Complete cash flow control in a simple way;
- Registration of receipts and forecasts;
- Transfer log.
All this without paying anything!
Control of accounts payable
Another important point of financial planning for a small business is debt management.
The control of bills to pay is one of the main management processes that control, anticipate and estimate obligations during a given period.
Good management avoids interest arising from maturities, predicts the profit margin and assesses the real cash balance.
First, a survey of the financial obligations, listing all accounts payable and receivable, even if the values are negligible.
This is the basics, so you don’t get lost in the middle of so much information, and it allows you to visualize the payments your business needs to make.
Then write down key details for each account, such as:
- Due date;
- Value to be paid;
- Form of payment;
- Number of plots;
- Installment to be paid.
Having well-controlled accounts and payable management improves the supplier relationship and frees the company from unnecessary burdens arising from delays.
Inventory control
A process that links logistics to financial planning is inventory control.
When carrying out inventory control efficiency, the entrepreneur gains a broad view of the movements in and out of products in his business.
This operation is essential to know the exact amount of products that the company needs to meet the demand that exists in the market without generating losses with losses or leftovers.
In addition to information related to the demands of specific products, the control provides a clear view of the profit net at the end of each accounting month.
Invoice management
Fiscal notes a document that proves that there was a transaction-commercial and what taxes were generated by it.
As it is a bureaucratic task, many entrepreneurs leave this management aside, especially micro and small companies with reduced staff.
It is worth remembering that keeping invoices organized and accessible is essential to optimize your accounting and financial processes.
In addition, the correct management of this document helps if your company undergoes any inspection.
Working capital control
O working capital is related to the necessary amount of money the company needs to maintain its activities.
Unlike cash flow, working capital is a value that can be accessed in case of need and with quick liquidity.
Ideally, your working capital is sufficient to pay, in the event of an emergency, the bills to pay for suppliers, the salary of employees, etc.
To exemplify, think of purchasing in installments in ae-commerce.
Although the value of these installments will be paid in full, the ideal is for the shopkeeper to have a reserve for any delays or even a chargeback.
The sale in installments represents one of several cases in which the company needs working capital to maintain its operations.
To work with healthy working capital, in this sense, it is important to establish the relationship between bills to receive from customers with the purchases you will make with suppliers.
Sales control and decision-making based on finances
Every important company action – marketing, investments, contracts, etc. – needs to be well programmed. Otherwise, the risk of imbalance is significant.
Imagine a scenario where a store, for example, expands its marketing area and generates investments in unpaid media promotions.
This also applies to investments in new platforms and product expansion: thus, the importance of controlling sales per meats the entire reality of a business.
Results management
As mentioned, financial planning must be ongoing and results in management are a way of analyzing whether the company is on the right track.
In other words, it is an action to identify the performance of strategies adopted by the company following the growth objectives outlined.
Follow the store returns closely, ensuring greater transparency in management and decision-making based on consistent information.
In addition, the lack of monitoring can lead to exorbitant expenses, generating a negative impact with serious consequences.
Measure results are the key point of any strategy; this is the only way to know if the company is on a promising path.
Bonus: 3 unique tools for effective financial planning
Now that you know the main financial operations and tips to optimize them, how about checking out three tools to boost your planning once and for all?
financial spreadsheets
Following a financial plan up close is not an easy task.
However, some tools and technologies help this process, automating and optimizing its execution.
For a business just starting, follow-up spreadsheets can be an interesting option.
We have prepared two unique control sheets:
Sales Control Worksheet;
Card Reconciliation Worksheet.
Cash Flow connected to your card machines
Our cash flow tool connects directly to all your card machines, daily updating the data of all the sales.
You can also simply register and categorize each entry and/or exit according to the company.
In addition, you can filter specific periods to analyze your cash and view the flow of receipts and expenses by week or month.
That is, through it, the sales control will be much more thorough and, best of all, automated!
See other benefits of this innovative tool:
- Control your cash flow with your business categories;
- Track sales and expenses by managing accounts payable and receivable;
- Have the signal of when each sale installment will fall into your account;
- Also, enjoy a cash flow with automatic calculation of the main indicators financial;
- Count on the centralization of all your sales data in any payment method.
Correctly following the main indicators of your business is part of the set of practices of good financial control.
Maven Business Plans automatically calculates these indicators for you using the cash flow tool.
So you will know the results with sales, variable costs, fixed expenses, operational investments and non-operational inputs and outputs: in other words, control your entire financial area simply and effectively!
As sales, They also appear detailed with date, description, payment method, flag, type, number of installments and total value.
This makes it easy to check one by one when these values are received.
You can also register all your accounts payable and change the status to monitor if your company is meeting its obligations. Financial.
Automated control and checking of card machines
Maven Business Plans Cards also offers a complete tool system that synchronizes all data from your machines, sales and receipts.
You can view your sales information in one place with cards from all your machines and CNPJs.
If you work with one, two, three or more machines, that’s fine! We centralize all information from sales on the same platform.
You can also register the rates agreed with each operator, and the system automatically calculates if the amount applied is correct.
The establishment can filter these operations if you have more than one on the platform.
Select period, operator, brand, bank details or the type of transaction you want.
We are sure that, with this, the control of your sales in installments or cash via cards will be much more efficient!
Conclusion: financial planning in practice
With the automation of processes through the tools we point out here. You will leave your company operations more efficient and simple.
Good financial planning is essential to ensure the survival of a business from small to large. And also to allow it to reach greater heights by its growth objectives.
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