Budget tools to help you manage your small business finances

By Inna Kaushan, Solna

When you are busy managing your business it can be easy to put financial issues to one side. Read more here some financial tips from Hawley Advisors. Let’s look at five tools to help you automate tasks, keep track of your budgets and expenses, improve your invoicing, help you get paid and make life easier. 

Monese: Banking 

Monese provides freelancers and small businesses with a UK-based bank account that can be set up quickly. You can manage all your banking using the smart mobile app, designed to provide flexibility and easy transfers.

If you pay for your Monese online expense management software, you can use your card anywhere in the world with no fees and your account in 10 languages.

Fees? As a freelancer, you can use Monese’s free account which gives access to all the features but will charge for cash machine withdrawals and payments abroad, and a small fee for your card delivery. The two paid accounts cost £4.95 and £14.95. you’ll get a free card and get access to some or all those features for free. A business account (£9.95 a month) gives you a two-in-one Monese Business and Monese Plus personal account. If you need some tips to boost your finances, check out The Wealth Builder Club.

Expensify: Managing expenses

It is very easy to collect receipts and then keep them in a heap! However, this disorganised approach makes tracking billable expenses such an effort you might not bother or let a few costs slip through the net.

Expensify is great for people who pile up receipts. It offers receipt scanning, next-day reimbursement, GPS mileage tracking, and tax tracking. You can allocate costs to specific jobs, set up unlimited categories, and import your credit or debit cards so everything sits under one account. It consolidates all your expenses making them much easier to manage.

It even comes with a virtual assistant called Concierge.

Fees? Individual plans are £3.99 a month. Group plans start from £4 per user/month.

Stripe: Payment options

Offering your customers multiple payment options is one way to avoid delays in getting paid. The more payment options you offer, the fewer excuses your clients have for failing to pay on n.

Stripe is your one-stop-shop for everything you need to get paid. Used by millions of businesses, Stripe is secure and easy for your customers to use and allows you to accept online and in-person payments from anyone in any country.

Fees? Stripe charges a standard 1.4% transaction charge plus a 20p per transaction fee for European cards and 2.9% plus a 20p fee for non-European cards. There is no setup fee and you only pay for what you use.

Solna: Smart Invoicing

Sending out your invoices sounds a simple task, but it can often feel like a time-consuming admin burden.

If you want to get paid on time, smart invoicing is the best approach.  Solna is packed with smart features to protect freelancers and small businesses and makes invoicing quick and easy.

With Solna, users can create, customise and send invoices in seconds. It sends automatic payment reminders to late payers and lets you track every invoice until it’s in your account. Invoices also come with read receipts, so no more chasing accounting people either.

You can also get a better view of who you’re doing business with and make the best decisions when setting payment terms using Solna’s credit check facility. It’s an invoicing tool with brains.

Fees? You can sign up to Solna’s free version that provides access to invoice templates and customers’ credit scores for a limited number of customers. The paid packages give you invoice tracking, recurring invoices, advanced reporting in addition to more customers and templates. 

Emma: Saving and Budgeting

To be good with your money, Emma is a handy little tool that lets you effortlessly manage your cash flow and control your budgeting.

Emma acts as your personal finance adviser by keeping track of all your spending, subscriptions, and even alerting you on any overdrafts. Emma can also help you keep track of debt repayments and it even prompts you to save money by suggesting what you can afford to save at the end of each month.

Fees? Emma is free to use but users also have the option to upgrade to Emma Pro for premium features including custom categories, unlimited budgeting, and data exports

These tools are easy to use so take a look and get them helping you with your financial management.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Inna Kaushan is co-founder of Solna, a smart invoicing platform powered by credit score data. Solna speeds up the invoicing and payment process for freelancers and small businesses. Through leveraged credit data that is overlaid on the platform’s invoicing and reporting functionality, users get a clear picture of their customer’s financial health and their overall exposure to risk. The system’s automated credit control functionality automatically chases overdue invoices – freeing up time and ensuring faster payment.

Webhttps://solna.io/

Twitter: @solna_io

Facebook:@Solna.io

LinkedIn: Solna

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