Do You Even Understand Your Finances?

Business finances or personal finances, it pays to understand them both. You can’t really have one without the other either, we think. How can you run a successful business, but not have enough money in the bank to live from. How can you run a successful business knowing that your only source of money of an investment is the banks again. If you go down the route of just borrowing and borrowing, you’re never going to get out of the cycle, and the level of business debts that you could build up will just keep going and going. But understanding your finances is hard. You might understand when you can spend money, and when you can’t spend money, but actually understanding what effect your actions are having is the important part that people are missing. So in this article, we want to touch upon a few things. We want to show you how to understand your business finances, and how to understand your personal finances to hopefully help better your life. You should also have an insight as to how the two work together. Keep on reading to find out more!

Your Personal Finances

Your personal finances are something you definitely need to think about sorting out, and at least focusing more of your attention on. So many different things can go wrong with your business if your personal finances are flagging, so let’s think about how you can monitor them. Experian credit monitoring is just one thing that you could use to monitor your situation. Your credit rating is going to affect so many things, such as your ability to get a mortgage, get finance on a car, and everything else in between. Just because your business is bringing in money, it doesn’t mean you are, and telling people you have got your own business isn’t going to get you accepted for finance on anything, in fact, it might even make things worse. So figure out what negative factors are affecting your credit rating through things like Experian, and work it to get it back where it needs to be!

Your Business Finances

Business finances are definitely something that you need to begin thinking about, because they really do need to be on the up and up. But in the economy that we’re struggling through today, we know that can be hard. So if you can’t alter the money coming in for your business, at least alter what’s going out. Think about ways that you can make cuts if you need to, or move money around so that more is being put into product development and marketing. Eventually you will get to the point where your business is bringing in a lot of money for you to lean on, but it could be years before that happens, so you have to take action now!

How They Merge Together

The two work together because if one is suffering, the other one will be too. You have to think of a way that you can level them both out, so that whether you’re looking at your personal finances or your businesses, both are levelled out and stable, and at least then your stress will be reduced.

Unfamiliar with the business world? Simple steps for newbies

When you were in school studying away at all the different facets of education, you’d often stop
and think about what it is you’ll be doing once schooling has finished. You allow yourself to think
about all of the crazy stuff before realizing that they are perhaps a little too far-fetched and
impossible. You also think about running your own business one day and how you’d enjoy being
a successful and wealthy boss. You’d wonder about all of the different sectors of work, which
one you’ll eventually fall into and hope that you’ll like it enough to stay and earn a good, honest
living.
Now you’re at that stage. You’ve been working in a job that you don’t feel is fulfilling you and
your potential. You pondered whether you’ll enjoy the work side of life after leaving school and
the answer isn’t exactly a resounding yes. So you’ve decided that you want to move and lead
your own firm. You want to work for yourself and enjoy doing so. But, like a massive portion of
the people in the world, you haven’t the faintest idea of what to do and where to start.
It’ll take a lot of research and dedication to get to your aspired stage, but for now, let’s have a
little look at some fundamental aspects of the business journey.

Deciding What You Actually Want

A critical yet straightforward thing to think about – a silly as it all sounds. You might have seen
somebody from your area create a booming business, so you decided you’re going to emulate
them and try to enter a world in which you know or care little about because you want what they
have. No. Choose something that you care about. This is going to be your baby – you going to
spend a lot of your life in and around it. Make it something you know.
Plan
When you make a business plan, the basic idea is to plot out the vision of how the business is
going to be formed, built up and sustained. You need to mark out what the overall idea is, what
your actual objectives are and how you’re going to fulfill them. Imagine you start up a business
and have no structure or direction. It’s like making a track for you to follow with every completed
objective being like crossing a finishing line.
Location
This would usually apply to a business that is further along down the journey – the idea of
needing a professional workspace; looking for the right location for you and others alongside
you. But, for a lone freelancer with humble resources, simply working at home on the couch or
in bed wouldn’t motivate you. Whereas creating a home office would make you feel as though
you’re in the zone and ready to go.
Creating A Website
Creating a website is an integral part of business nowadays. It is expected that a site is made as
technology has moved on and people will want quick and easy access to information about the
product or service you’re providing. You’ll want it to be simple to navigate through and nice on
the eye.

The Money
When it comes to the financial side of your new business, you’ll need to allocate different funds
you have to where they’re most needed. You’ll also think about how you’ll make money: are you
going to take credit card payments as well as bank transfers? If so you need to set this up. Also,
you’ll need to think about tax. If you’re not too comfortable working it all out, then you can hire
an accountant to do it for you. This means you can focus on what you’re good at and you won’t
have the extra stress.
Social Media
Pretty much everybody in the world now has social media of some sort, and a business should
do too. A way to get in touch with customers and also a way to promote whatever it is that you
are selling. They’re free to create and simple to work with, so it’s an easy, cheap and risk-free
form of promotion.
Marketing
We touched on it before with social media, but marketing a product is the way in which you
connect the customers to the product. There are a few ways to market your product or service.

including public relations, setting up events and search engine optimization. This is usually seen as the fun side of the business, so you can get creative.