Whether you`re a solopreneur or running a large company, you need a business budget to understand where your money is coming from and where it`s going. A business budget template can help you organize the numbers so you can easily track sales, plan expenses, and save for future growth. Here`s how you can succeed with a business budget template: The balance has a neat table template that lists each budget item, budgeted amount, actual amount, and difference in between. Use this one if you want to keep it simple and straightforward. This beautiful Microsoft Office model focuses solely on expenses, but it does this task exceptionally well. There are tabs for planned and actual spending, a tab for automatically calculated variances between the two, and a tab for cost analysis with pie charts. While it`s not a free template per se, you probably have a powerful budgeting tool right in your business accounting software. While not as flexible as a separate template, there are many benefits to using the budgeting feature of your accounting software. This free plan includes eight different templates, so you can create multiple budgets to determine how much money you want to invest in marketing and ROI. For small businesses, it can be difficult to find the time to create a budget, but it`s important to keep the business healthy. LocaliQ`s Complete Guide to Marketing Budgets not only provides you with a marketing budget template, but also walks you through the basics of marketing budgeting.
Grant Cardone likes to say, „Cash flow is king. Where does your money come from? How much and how often does it happen? For budgeting to work for small businesses, you need to have the answers to these questions. Budgeting is difficult for startups – you rarely have an existing model to work with. Do your due diligence by looking for industry references for salaries, rent, and marketing costs. Ask your network what you can expect in terms of professional fees, benefits and equipment. Set aside some of your budget for consultants – accountants, lawyers, things like that. A few thousand dollars upfront could save you thousands of additional legal fees and avoid inefficiencies later. You can create a small business budget template from scratch using free software like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.
However, it is often more efficient to download a template (see our list above). A template with built-in charts and formulas allows you to insert your income and expenses and calculate your profits or losses quickly and easily. A business budget template can be as simple as a table or as complex as a multi-page table. Just make sure you create something that you`re actually going to use. If you want to succeed in business, you need to know where every dollar goes. It is not enough to have a rough idea – it must be on paper. This is where a corporate budget comes in. But according to a study by Clutch, 46% of small businesses don`t have a declared budget. That`s almost half 😮. You may be familiar with Intuit, as many businesses, large and small, rely on Intuit`s services like Quickbooks and TurboTax. Even if you don`t use the company`s paid financial services, you can take advantage of Intuit`s free budget template, which works in Google Sheets or Excel.
Since your business isn`t consistent every month, a budget gives you a good overview of past and current data to predict future cash flow. Making forecasts this way will help you spot annual trends, see how much money you`ll need to get through the slow months, and look for ways to cut costs to offset the offseason. Use your off-season to plan for next year, negotiate with suppliers, and build customer loyalty through engagement. Capterra`s small business budget model is easy to use and uses all the components defined above, such as fixed costs, variable costs, revenue, and profits. You can use it in Excel or Google Sheets. This is the amount you expect from the sale of goods or services. It`s the money you put in the door, no matter what you spent to get there. This is the first line of your budget.
It can be based on last year`s numbers or industry averages if you`re a startup.