Staying Organized: The Best Financial Tools to Help Your Small Business Grow

It's essential to use the right financial tools to stay on tocp of where, how, and why you spend money. In that way, to run a business or home successfully, you must be able to manage your finances. This post details what you need to become a proficient money manager and achieve your personal and business financial goals.

Table of Contents
1. Financial management software that every business should consider
2. The best online financial planning tools for money management
3. How to manage small business finances
4. FAQs

Financial Management Software That Every Business Should Consider

Use business financial management tools like these to improve how you manage your business.

Accounting Software

This financial tool streamlines how you complete accounting by:

• saving time
• increasing accuracy
• simplifying your tax filing season

Using this type of software allows you to access financial reports and print out professional-looking business statements.

Expense Accounting and Tracking

For anyone that loses track of how much they spend, this tool helps you stay on budget, record and track business expenses, and organize your finances.

Budgeting Tools

Automated budgeting software is a timesaver because you can set up spending categories and update transactions in real-time. This financial tool also helps you spot lousy spending habits and learn how to put away money for emergencies. You can set up overspending and upcoming payment alerts and decide how much to set aside for investments and retirement with budgeting software.

Payroll Management

This financial tool increases and simplifies accuracy when:

• paying employees
• preparing employment documents

You can also:

• stay up to date on payroll regulations
• meet payroll deadlines
• complete monthly, quarterly, and year-end reports

#DidYouKnow You could hire a payroll management company or prepare your payroll in-house.

Billing System

Workflow, communications, payments, and customer service improve when you use a billing system to run and maintain your business. You can generate invoices quicker, track customer payments, and in some cases, integrate the system with your communications and marketing departments.

Inventory Tracking

Business owners increase productivity, cut costs, and increase profits by managing inventory. Tracking inventory helps them know which items sell and to remove ones that don't the managing stock also improves data accuracy.

Tax Preparation

Hiring a professional bookkeeper or using tax preparation software over the long-term saves you time and money and cuts down on mistakes.

Business strategy

Strategy-planning software helps entrepreneurs stay on track. They can:

• review their cash flow
• revise financial goals
• review business growth
• make cost reductions
• develop a crisis management plan

Additionally, after reviewing financial data, a business owner can make long-term decisions such as liquidating assets or developing steps to increase revenue. Get the financing you need to succeed

The best online financial planning tools for money management

In this list of financial management tools, you’ll find everything you need to manage your money like a pro. We’ve also listed personal and business financial software that you could use to simplify the process.

Financial analysis tools

These business tools help present an overall view of your financial health.

Achieve growth

Business owners use a balance sheet to determine their business's financial health. To assess financial growth, they also need to review information relating to their:

• working capital
• gross profit margin
• debt-to-equity ratio
• operating cash flow

Optimize revenue

A business's financial statement shows the amount of revenue earned over a specific period and the costs and expenses. Revenue management software helps a business owner review data to optimize the pricing and distribution of goods and services.

Analyze cashflow

A business's profit and loss statement compare revenue to costs and expenses to show net profit. Business owners use financial analysis software to see whether their business creates a profit and make calculations such as return on assets and investments.

The best: Fathom: Financial analysis software

Fathom offers metrics that can give you a snapshot of your business’ performance. This analysis can help you determine how to grow your business further. Cost: $44 per month. Other tools you can use for these purposes are:

• Microsoft Excel
• Tableau
• Quicken
• Mint
• Personal Capital

Small business tracking expenses tools

The best financial tracking software lets you know exactly how your money flows.

Reach financial goals

Expense tracking software with an intuitive dashboard lets you see at a glance how well you handle money. However, don't let the newness of a better habit wear off, and you stop tracking expenses.

Identify problem areas

Features such as compatibility with mobile apps and accounting software enable you to spot weak spending areas in real-time.

Create financial stability

Integrated credit card management software features allow you to track expenses, so you learn how to spend the money you do have without having more debt than income.

Expensify: Expense tracking software

Expensify is a money management tool that offers to invoice, expense reporting, corporate cards, receipt scanning, bill pay, tracking expenses, and reimbursements.

Budgeting tools for online money management

These small business organization tools keep you on target to reach financial goals.

Manage money better

Following a budget helps you feel more in control and less stressed. Some user-friendly phone apps ping the phone when you overspend in a specific category.

Plan for future purchases

Some business budgeting software has built-in features to include bar graphs to see how close you are to your saving and spending goals. Make sure you choose budgeting software with features you'll actually use and, most importantly, keep your data secure.

Make better financial decisions

Many budgeting software programs integrate with accounting programs so you can crunch the numbers to decide whether to take out a loan and make a large purchase.

Quickbooks: Budgeting software

While Quickbooks is accounting software, it’s also the best budgeting software. It offers: invoicing and billing, sorting expenses, expense management, and capturing and organizing receipts. Also, it is a point of sale software and more. Cost: from $25 to $80 per month. The following tools will help you to improve your budget:

• Quicken
• QuickBooks
• Mint
• You Need a Budget (YNAB)
• Personal Capital

Financial planning tools

It helps you develop steps to improve your finances.

Develop a financial plan

Business owners do better when they have a financial roadmap to reach short and long-term goals.

Grow a business

Financial planning software includes components such as:

• customer relations management
• investment analytics
• financial strategies to increase business growth

Assess risk

Business owners use financial planning software to decide whether to save for college and retirement funds, make investments, and track debt without putting their business at risk.

Quicken: Financial planning software

Quicken allows you to create budgets, create and manage specific savings goals, track your spending, and manage your bills. It also offers planning tools and debt, investment, and retirement account, trackers. Cost: From $35.99 to $62.39 per year.

Payroll management systems

Ensures accuracy of human resource activities.

Automates tasks

After inputting information, you can calculate:

• earnings
• bonuses
• make payroll deductions
• print out reports

It's possible to use the software to store personnel records, predict future payroll costs, and record employee attendance.

Reduces administrative burden

A payroll management system includes up-to-date regulations, so an employer stays compliant with tax regulations.

Saves time

An automated payroll system prepares payroll and reports to agencies quicker than preparing it manually. This saves employers and employees considerable time. Payroll management systems present data security risks based on who has access to the information and potential cyber security threats.

Gusto: Financial planning software

Gusto offers direct payments and convenient tools that allow you to track and file taxes. Cost: From $39 (and $6 per employee) to $149 per month (and $12 per person).

Cash flow analysis

Reveals how much cash you have available at all times.

Determine a business's efficiency

Business owners determine overall productivity by selecting how soon sales convert to cash when reviewing their cash flow statement and related analysis reports.

See where cash goes

You can review individual transactions and run reports showing a full activity audit. Depending on the feature, cash flow management software has a steep learning curve.

Take steps to improve cash flow

You can plan for future purchases by analyzing whether your cash flow is steady or fluctuates.

Float: Cash flow software

Float Cash Flow Forecasting is a handy tool that shows your past, current, and future cash flow, which allows you to take actions to improve it. Cost: $59.00 per month with flexible pricing plans.

Inventory management

This financial software for small businesses allows you to only keep products that sell.

Remove older inventory items

With inventory software, you can track the age of items to determine which to delete or reduce. There's always the possibility that the system could crash, so you should make regular data backups.

Manage to reorder

Most financial software for small businesses has a built-in automatic reordering feature when inventory balances dip under a certain level. In addition, some predict future inventory usage.

Update accounting data

If your inventory management software integrates with your accounting system, it instantly posts data to costs and assets, saving time.

Orderhive: Inventory management software

Orderhive offers unlimited SKUs, purchase order (PO) creation, barcode scanning, reporting options, alerts, and more. Cost: From free to $299.99 per month.

Personal money management tools

It helps you identify weak and strong management habits to reach personal financial goals.

Develop a budget

Personal money management tools help you organize your spending into categories and savings accounts. Make sure to choose a tool that's safe and provides regular updates.

Monitor investments

Once you have sufficient data, you can view and print reports relating to how well your investments are doing and your success at managing money.

Track financial goals

Many programs make recommendations on reaching your goals based on your spending and saving habits. This financial tool is simple, easy to use, and integrates with online banking apps.

Mint: Personal money management software

Mint is a personal financial planning software that analyzes your spending and gives you finance-improving tips. The app allows you to set up budgets and lets you know how much you’ve spent in different categories. It also offers alerts for due dates and low balances, and you can link the platform to your financial institution. Cost: free to use.

How to manage small business finances

Developing good financial habits helps a small business owner manage finances. For example, investing in financial tools helps them create good business credit and contributes to accelerated growth. Successful money managers take out loans to make strategic purchases such as upgrading equipment, purchasing a work vehicle, or buying additional warehouse space. Business expenses are easy to track. These tools keep a close eye on account receivables and payables and make the right investments to increase their return on investment. They meet deadlines, never commingle personal and business finances, and review their budget to avoid overspending and cut costs.

Importance of having business money management knowledge

When a business owner focuses on how well they manage money, they help further its future. They:

• pay suppliers on time
• make timely payments to repay debt
• make sure they have sufficient working capital to cover planned and unexpected expenses

Because they manage the inflow and outflow of money, they can run their operation to match their business plan and achieve goals.

FAQs
What is the most important financial tool? There’s not one single tool that is the most important. They are vital if they help you do the best job of managing your finances and having a complete financial picture. Financial tools should fit within a predetermined price range of your home or business's budget and the ones you're comfortable using.
What are the 4 best money management tools? The best software solutions are accounting, expense tracking, budget management, and financial planning software.
What is a personal finance tool? They are tools that enable you to manage your finances by determining your net worth, creating a budget, tracking expenses, developing financial goals, and controlling spending.
What is the main tool of financial administration? Setting up a budget and sticking to it, also involves paying creditors on time, paying off debt, setting aside money for savings,  and managing money efficiently day-to-day