Spend less, make more. A lot of money management is just common sense. But you make numerous decisions daily that can have at least minor impact on your cash flow. You also occasionally make major choices that can result in eventual profit or loss.

Here are some ideas that can help tip the scales toward more positive money management.

Track your business and personal expenses separately.

The smaller your company, the easier it is to just lump everything together. But you can’t get a true picture of what’s happening with your income and expenses of either type if you’re maintaining one checkbook, making combined deposits, charging everything on one credit card, etc. It’s a good idea to open a business savings account and contribute to it regularly, to be prepared for things like estimated taxes and emergencies.

Don’t hire full-time workers prematurely.

If you haven’t hired anyone yet, you don’t know how expensive employees are, or how challenging personnel problems can be. Start out by using contract workers for some tasks.

But do hire when you need help. Too many entrepreneurs try to do everything and don’t leave themselves enough time for analysis or planning and fulfilling the dream they had when they launched their businesses.

Make it as easy as possible for customers to pay you.

What’s your technology I.Q.? Do you keep up with the latest cloud-based tools for small businesses? For example, you can email invoices to customers and let them pay online with a credit card, PayPal, etc.

Do you have enough communication options (email, phone, chat, social media), and do you respond quickly to questions about invoices? That’s just good business etiquette, and it will speed up payments when there’s an issue.

You might also encourage customers to pay quickly by offering discounts for early payments and finance charges for late ones. We can help you evaluate the pros and cons, and determine what makes sense for your financials.

Minimize expenses in every way you can.

Easier said than done, but you often have the option to save money on expenses. Do you need to pay a monthly subscription fee for online productivity tools, or can you get by with free alternatives? Can you negotiate with vendors on products and services (maybe even do some trading instead of paying cash)? Instead of just buying everything new because it’s faster to shop online, make an effort to look for options like leased and secondhand products.

Study your financial history to plan for the future.

This is an area where we can be of assistance to you. If you’re not using an accounting application, we can get you started with one. It’ll make it much easier to analyze your income and expenses. Or we can simply work with you to get a clear picture of where you’ve been and what your plans and goals are, then help you build a financial plan to get there. Please contact us if you have any questions.