Author: webadmin

Creating a business budget is a crucial step toward success. Many people think of budgeting as their least favorite part of running a business — but if you want to be successful, creating and maintaining a proper business budget will be a critical component of that success. Don’t turn away from it! Here’s a step-by-step guide for how to create a business budget. If you want to save money in some places and make more in others — that’s where we come in! A quick consult at no charge to you — and you’ll quickly see where we can help you trim the fat and increase margins and revenue — FAST. 

An organization’s budget dictates how it leverages capital to work toward goals. For this reason, the ability to prepare a budget is one of the most crucial skills for any business leader—whether a current or aspiring entrepreneur, executive, functional lead, or manager.

Before preparing your first organizational budget, it’s important to understand what goes into a budget and the key steps involved in creating one.

WHAT IS A BUDGET?

A budget is a document businesses use to track income and expenses in a detailed enough way to make operational decisions.

Budgets are typically forward-looking in nature. Income is based on projections and estimates for the periods they cover, as are expenses. For this reason, organizations often create both short- (monthly or quarterly) and long-term (annual) budgets, where the short-term budget is regularly adjusted to ensure the long-term budget stays on track.

Most organizations also prepare what’s known as an “actual budget” or “actual report” to compare estimates against reality following the period covered by the budget. This allows an organization to understand where it went wrong in the budgeting process and adjust estimates moving forward.

Budget vs. Cash Flow Statement

If the definition above sounds similar to a cash flow statement, you’re right: Your organization’s budget and cash flow statement are similar in that they both monitor the flow of money into and out of your business. Yet, they differ in key ways.

First, a budget typically offers more granular details about how money is spent than a cash flow statement does. This provides greater context for making tactical business decisions, such as considering where to trim business expenses.

Second, a budget is, quite literally, a tool used to direct work done within an organization. The cash flow statement plays a different role by offering a higher-level overview of how money moves into, throughout, and out of an organization.

Instead of thinking of the two documents as competing, view them as complementary, with each playing a role in driving your business’s performance.

STEPS TO PREPARE A BUDGET FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION

The steps below can be followed whether creating a budget for a project, initiative, department, or entire organization.

1. Understand Your Organization’s Goals

Before you compile your budget, it’s important to have a firm understanding of the goals your organization is working toward in the period covered by it. By understanding those goals, you can prepare a budget that aligns with and facilitates them.

For example, consider a business that regularly experiences year-over-year revenue growth that’s offset by rising expenses. That organization might benefit from focusing efforts on better controlling expenses during the budgeting process.

Alternatively, consider a company launching a new product or service. The company may invest more heavily in the fledgling business line to grow it. With this goal, the company may need to trim expenses or growth initiatives elsewhere in its budget.

2. Estimate Your Income for the Period Covered by the Budget

To allocate funds for business expenses, you first need to determine your income and cash flow for the period to the best of your ability.

Depending on the nature of your organization, this can be a simple or complicated process. For example, a business that sells products or services to known clients locked in with contracts will likely have an easier time estimating income than a business that depends on active sales activity. In the second case, it would be important to reference historical sales and marketing data to understand whether the market is changing in a way that might cause you to miss or exceed historical trends.

3. Identify Your Expenses

Once you understand your projected income for the period, you need to estimate your expenses. This process involves three main categories: fixed costs, variable expenses, and one-time expenses.

Fixed costs are any expenses that remain constant over time and don’t dramatically vary from week to week or month to month. In many cases, those expenses are locked in by some form of contract, making it easy to anticipate and account for them. This category usually includes expenses related to overhead, such as rent payments and utilities. Phone, data, and software subscriptions can also fall into this category, along with debt payments. Any expense that’s regular and expected should be included.

Variable expenses are those your business incurs, which vary over time depending on several factors, including sales activities. Your shipping and distribution costs, for example, are likely to be higher during a period when you sell more product than one when you sell less product. Likewise, utilities such as water, gas, and electricity will be higher during periods of increased use. This is especially true for businesses that manufacture their own products. Sales commissions, materials costs, and labor costs are other examples of variable expenses.

Both fixed expenses and variable expenses are recurring in nature, making it easy to account for them (even if variable expenses must be projected). One-time expenses, also called “one-time spends,” don’t recur and happen more rarely. Purchasing equipment or facilities, developing a new product or service, hiring a consultant, and handling a security breach are all examples of one-time expenses. Understanding major initiatives—and what it will take to accomplish them—and what you’ve spent in previous years on similar expenses can help account for them in your budget, even if you’re unsure of their exact values.

4. Determine Your Budget Surplus or Deficit

After you’ve accounted for all your income and expenses, you can apply them to your budget. This is where you determine whether you have enough projected income to cover all your expenses.

If you have more than enough income to cover your expenses, you have a budget surplus. Knowing this, you should determine how to use additional funds best. You may, for example, move the money into a rainy day fund you can access should your actual income fall short of projections. Alternatively, you may deploy the funds to grow your business.

On the other hand, if your expenses exceed your income, you have a budget deficit. At this point, you must identify the best path forward to close the gap. Can you bring in additional funds by selling more aggressively? Can you lower your fixed or variable expenses? Would you consider selling bonds or shares of company stock to infuse the business with additional capital?

AN IMPORTANT FINANCIAL STATEMENT

The person responsible for generating a budget varies depending on an organization’s nature and its budgetary goals. An entrepreneur or small business owner, for example, is likely to prepare an organizational budget on their own. Meanwhile, a larger organization may rely on a member of the accounting department to generate a budget for the entire business. Individual department heads or functional leads might also be called on to submit budget proposals for their teams.

With this in mind, anyone who aspires to start their own business or move into an organizational leadership position can benefit from learning how to prepare a budget.

Perform Practice Solutions can help you optimize your day-to-day operations, from billing to marketing, including credentialing and patient eligibility verification. You don’t need to do everything on your own. Make the commitment to improve your clinic’s performance for real this year — and don’t look back. Visit our Facebook page or give us a call at (833) 764-0178.

Reference: [https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/how-to-prepare-a-budget-for-an-organization]

2021 is quickly coming to an end, and while most of us are busy scrambling for holiday gifts and preparing for parties, business owners have their schedules jam-packed with mountains of responsibilities. From reviewing accounting to adding-up expenses, this is the time of the year when your small business needs attention. Don’t worry; we bring you some planning tips below for easing the process — and are available for a complimentary consultation to help you with billing, marketing, credentialing, and even your practice sales!

It’s that time of year again! While many people focus on holiday celebrations and new year’s resolutions this time of year, small business owners also need to focus on year-end business planning. This includes both preparing for the new year, AND taking stock of the year past!

But because the end of the year is so hectic, it’s not always easy to keep up with all the end-of-year preparations you should be doing to wind down 2021 and plan for 2022.

These activities — taking stock, preparation, and planning — are key to running a successful business. After all, what is measured is improved.  This review helps you realign goals and resources so you can take advantage of new opportunities.

That’s why we’ve prepared this year-end small business checklist. It’s a rundown of every major and minor task you need to take care of before 2022 becomes a reality.

Small Business Checklist: End of 2021

1. Prepare Your Key Financial Documents

Financial documents play a crucial role in your company. Reviewing your financial documents gives you three benefits.

First, it shows you whether you’re running a healthy business or if you need some belt-tightening going forward. Your documents should provide a guide to your company’s financial position and health, and should include details about your assets and liabilities, profit and expenses, and cash flow.

Second, if you do need some adjustment (more sales, say, or fewer expenses), financial documents show you where adjustments are needed and tell you how much you need to adjust. Third, if you’re in the market for funding, expansion, or mentorship, financial documents are often required to let interested parties see the financial records of your business.

The financial documents you need before year-end are:

• The balance sheet report, showing all the assets, liabilities, and equity;
• The income statement report, showing revenue, expenses, and profit; and
• The cash flow statement report, showing opening and closing cash within a specific period, with inflow and outflow itemized.

Let’s get started. Don’t forget to see if your accounting software, accounting team, or CPA can put these together for you!

Prepare Your Year-End Balance Sheet

A balance sheet helps you determine if you’re in the black or the red. It does this by comparing everything the business owns against everything the business owes. The business owns things like physical inventory, property or equipment, trademarks, and invoices the business needs to collect. The business owes things like pension plan obligations or invoices they need to pay. By doing this comparison, you can determine whether you should be cutting back on your spending, or pushing your business to grow.  And yes, the balance sheet should ALWAYS balance.

How to Prepare Your Year-End Income Statement

The income statement is important because it clearly shows you if you are earning more than you’re spending, or vice-versa. It compares the amount earned in a period of time versus the amount spent. Because of this, it is also called a profit and loss statement. It’s different from the balance sheet because it looks at business expenses and earnings across a period of time, instead of a single, frozen instance like the balance sheet. It also doesn’t take into account any external equity you, as the business owner, might have, such as stock. While the income statement of a large company might be longer than that of a sole proprietorship, the overall format of an income statement is uniform across business sizes. First, choose a period of time, either 2021 as a whole or just the last three months. Write down all your revenues and gains during that period on the top half of the page. On the bottom half, document all your expenses and losses. Subtract the latter from the former, and you’ll be able to see your net income during that time period.

How to Prepare Your Year-End Cash Flow Statement

Your cash flow statement should show how much cash you have at the beginning and end of a specific period, and where it all went. On a cash statement, you want to document three things:

• Cash flow from operations, such as revenue and expenses. In other words, the money you earned or lost from doing business as usual.
• Cash flow from investments, such as assets bought and assets sold. This can also include stock.
• Cash flow from financial decisions, such as loans and their repayment.

Once you have an itemized list of all of the above, you should be able to clearly see up how much cash you have at end of this period. When compared to what you had at the beginning, you can see if you generated or lost money.

Putting Your Financial Reports Together

From these documents, you should calculate the following numbers:

• Current Ratio – the current assets divided by your current liabilities. Ideally, your current ratio should be between 1.5 and 2. A current ratio of 1 means you may not have enough money to last the year, whereas a current ratio of more than 2 could mean you’re not investing enough money into your business or outside investments.
• Debt Ratio – your total debt divided by your total assets. A “good” debt ratio depends largely on the industry, but anything below 0.3 is considered fair. Anything above 0.6 tends to make it difficult to bet additional loans.
• Gross Profit Margin –  First, divide your profit (what you have leftover after paying your costs) by total revenue (the total money you brought in). This shows you what percentage of your income is actually profit!

Small business owners should keep these statements on a monthly or at least a quarterly basis. You want to know the state of your business consistently, so you can plan accordingly. If you want to expand, you need to know you can, for instance. If your business is starting to show red ink, you want to know as soon as possible.

However, especially if your business is a new startup, you may have put off either compiling the information or having it done. There’s no time like the present!

2. Get Your Tax Documents Together

While the end of the year may not be tax season, it’s a good idea to get Get your tax documents together as well. The financial reports you prepared in the previous step should help you fill out your small business return. However, you may need to fill out additional tax forms, which may include:

• Form 1099-NEC and Form 1096
• W-2 Forms and W-3 Forms
• State and federal payroll returns annually (Form 940) or quarterly (Form 941)

You should also compile your income, both business and personal, if relevant. Gather all your deductions.

3. Assess Your 2021 Goals

If you had a specific 2021 goals list, pull it up and go over it. If you didn’t, write down what your unwritten goals were (and consider a written list for 2022). Review your goals systematically and assess them using the following questions:

• Were your goals achieved? Why or why not?
• If they were exceeded, why? How?
• What are the next steps? (Do you want to use higher than anticipated revenue to expand, for example, or make debt payments?)
• If they fell short, why? How?
• What are the next steps? (Do you need to pull back on your product line, for example? Pare down your forecasts? Lower prices?)

4. Plan Employee Morale Events

Don’t forget your employees in your year-end planning. They’re an important ingredient in your business success. Not only that, but the year-end holiday season provides multiple opportunities to reward them for what they’ve done.

As a stellar business owner, you want to boost morale and company loyalty. Consider what your employees might value: A big holiday party? More time with their family over the holidays? (If so, can you swing extra days off for everybody?) Flexible time to shop? (Could you give flex hours so they avoid the huge crushes in stores?) Company time to conduct a drive for charity? Could that be used for your business’s benefit?

5. Plan Your Own Vacation

All too often, small business owners put off their own vacation until the year is totally over! Everybody needs some time to recharge and relax. Plan a vacation or think through your time off before the year is out.

Perform Practice Solutions can help you to optimize your day-to-day operations, from billing to marketing, including credentialing and patient eligibility verification. You don’t need to do everything on your own. Make the commitment to improve your clinic’s performance for real next year — and don’t look back. Visit our Facebook page or give us a call at (833) 764-0178.

Reference: [https://www.guidantfinancial.com/blog/small-business-year-end-checklist/]

Understanding your target market is essential if you want your business to be successful. The more specific you can be about who your customers are, the more readily you can create effective marketing strategies and products that will appeal to them and avoid wasting time and money. Here are some questions to help you narrow your target market while owning your own slice of the market. Remember, we have a marketing department that can assist you with determining your perfect prospect – and also work with you on-going to manage all of your content, newsletters, social media maintenance, and website needs. 

Pinpointing a target audience is one of the most crucial steps in launching any successful business effort, including creating marketing campaigns and increasing sales. However, determining your audience is often much easier said than done. Before you can narrow down your ideal customer, you need to know how to do it correctly.

To that end, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members answered the following question:

“What’s one question small businesses should ask themselves when narrowing down their target audience? How does this help them in their business efforts moving forward?”

Here’s what they recommend you consider when thinking about who you’ll be selling to.

1. What Segment Would Be Most Impactful?

“What segment of customers will be most impactful to the business if we can capture them? Focus on the customers who will be most impactful in a specific timeframe. Every company wants to reach every possible customer, but focusing on who will be most impactful in the near future helps you to narrow your focus and deliver to customers who will help you reach your goals faster.” ~ Cody Candee, Bounce

2. Who Are My Current Customers?

“Identify who is currently buying your products or services, as well as any common factors such as demographics or psychographics. Once you do, incentivize them to spread the word with a referral or loyalty program. Thank them, and encourage positive reviews.” ~ Duran Inci, Optimum7

3. Who Is My Business Not a Good Fit For?

“Ask yourself, ‘Who are we not a good fit for?’ I know early in the Influence & Co. days we would think, ‘Any business can be our client!’ and over time we’ve realized that we’re a much better fit for B2B companies, specifically in professional services or technology. But it took us working with a few companies who were really not a good fit for us to realize that.” ~ Kelsey Raymond, Influence & Co.

4. What’s the Data Saying About Customers?

“What’s the data saying? Companies often come into customer acquisition with a target customer in mind. This is a good starting point, but ultimately, you need to listen to the market. You need to see who’s interested, paying and engaging with your product or service. As that base begins to scale, the data becomes meaningful and can significantly improve marketing and business ROI.” ~ Carlo Cisco, SELECT

5. Who Would Buy My Product?

“If I stripped my product to its bare bones, who would buy my product if I dropped it in their hands? Find the people who are asking for your product. That’s your initial target audience and they often know what it needs to succeed. They can give you the most actionable feedback to iterate on it and improve it.” ~ Ryan D Matzner, Fueled

6. What Pain Points Can My Business Solve?

“Ask, ‘What pain points does my target audience experience that my business can solve?’ Consumers are constantly looking for brands to give them answers or solutions, so if you can do this, you’re already on the right track to moving your business forward.” ~ Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms

7. How Do Customers Get Their Information?

“We live in an information age, and knowing how people get their information is key to business success. Do they get their information from Google, TikTok or print sources? Are they persuaded by billboards and media advertising? Figuring out where they get their info will help you know how to frame and present your content.” ~ Shu Saito, Fact Retriever

8. What Makes My Business or Products Unique?

“To narrow down your target audience, focus on what makes your business and products unique. Your competitors may offer something similar, but consider any features or benefits that set you apart. This may come down to superior quality, a lower price, faster service or a certain feature the others don’t offer. Then you can target those who will really appreciate this distinction.” ~ Kalin Kassabov, ProTexting

9. How Will I Reach My Audience?

“If you narrow down your audience too far, you may have a tough time actually reaching your audience with an impactful message. Or, you may narrow it down too far so that it’s nearly impossible to reach the numbers you need. Always think about how you are going to reach your audience when planning, and not just be theoretical.” ~ Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design

10. Where Does My Target Audience Spend Time?

“You’re going to want to connect to as many potential customers as possible. If you know that a majority of your audience spends their time on Facebook, you can develop more detailed customer personas by engaging in conversations and getting involved with the community.” ~ John Brackett, Smash Balloon LLC

You don’t need to do everything on your own. From billing to marketing, including credentialing and patient eligibility verification, Perform Practice Solutions can help. Give us a call today at (833) 764-0178 and join our Facebook community.

Reference: [https://smallbiztrends.com/2021/10/small-businesses-target-audiences.html]

Managing your business can be stressful. If you’ve been feeling like having no time to rest or are always anxious, stop for a few minutes and read more about some self-care tips. It will be super beneficial to you AND to your business. When it comes to less anxiety about running your PT or medical practice – that’s where we come in and take the load off regarding operations, billing, marketing, credentialing – and even sales. Meanwhile – take a deep breath and read on. 

Entrepreneurs are always taking care of their businesses. But some forget to do the little things to take care of themselves. Sometimes, entrepreneurial self-care can just mean doing things in a simpler or easier way to free up time or limit stress. Here are tips from members of the online small business community for entrepreneurs interested in self-care.

Sleep Better at Night

A good night’s sleep is important for all humans, but especially for entrepreneurs that want to improve energy and brain power. Lisa Sicard offers tips for improving sleep to optimize entrepreneurial output in this Small Biz Tipster post. And BizSugar members shared additional thoughts in the community.

Find the Best Times to Send Emails

No entrepreneur wants to waste time on inefficient communication. If you send a lot of business emails, you want them read and responded to right away. For the best times to accomplish this goal, read this Respona post by Payman Taei.

Consider Integrating AI into Your Company

Technology can free up a lot of time for small biz owners. But you need to use the right tools to reap the benefits without taking on extra risk. AI provides tons of opportunities, which Emily Johnson details in this MyTechMag post.

Support Neurodiversity in the Workplace

Diverse workplaces bring tons of new ideas and can help people from all backgrounds feel comfortable at work. Neurodiversity means welcoming people with neurological differences. Read about this concept and how it benefits businesses in this GoCo post by Nikhil Bendre.

Learn from These Marketing YouTube Channels

Business owners should always keep learning. Marketing concepts constantly evolve. So it’s important to find sources for information that are current and full of new ideas. This 99signals post by Sandeep Mallya includes 15 marketing YouTube channels to check out.

Speak with No Fear

It’s normal to feel a bit nervous when you speak to a crowd. However, you don’t want to feel tons of stress every time you talk about your business. Learning to speak with no fear can make life much simpler. Learn how in this Duct Tape Marketing post by Sara Nay.

Break Through Writer’s Block with These Technologies

Writer’s block can be frustrating for bloggers and entrepreneurs. However, there are tools that can help you break through. Anthony Gaenzle lists some in this Moss Media post. And BizSugar members shared additional thoughts here.

Read These Books to Improve Your Marketing

Reading can be an ideal way to relax, while still learning something that may help your business. If you want to get better at marketing, read this Einstein Marketer post by Josh Barney that includes several books to help.

Improve Your Business with Website Traffic

Growing a business with limited web traffic can be incredibly stressful. Once you get people coming to your site daily, it becomes easier to relax and focus on other things. In this SmallBizTechnology post, Becca Williams explains why web traffic is so important.

You don’t need to do everything on your own. From billing to marketing, including credentialing and patient eligibility verification, Perform Practice Solutions can help. Give us a call today at (833) 764-0178 and join our Facebook community.

Reference: [https://smallbiztrends.com/2021/09/self-care-tips-for-entrepreneurs.html]

Advice to continue to grow and develop your business is always welcome! Having a business means hard work, successes, and failures. So it’s important to keep learning from it. Here you can read more about the most valuable lessons a CEO has to share in his two decades of entrepreneurship.

Ask any entrepreneur for business advice and they’ll be glad to share their stories of hard work, successes, and failures.

I spoke with serial entrepreneur Brian Kalish, CEO of Xigem Technologies, to share some of the most valuable lessons he’s learned in his two decades of entrepreneurship. Kalish’s entrepreneurial journey has spanned multiple industries from consumer packaged goods to publishing, healthcare, and professional sports. Kalish credits this diverse experience with his continued success as an entrepreneur. Here’s his advice:

Embrace failure and learn from it.

Failure is a wonderful teacher, as long as you’re willing to learn from it. As Kalish points out, “You learn more from the failures than you do the successes.” You can learn from every failure, no matter how large or how small. Take the time to analyze what when wrong, when and where in the process it went wrong, and come up with ways to ensure that those mistakes are corrected moving forward.

Surround yourself with the right people.

Having the right team in place is integral for business success. You want to build a strong team that supports all areas of your business and doesn’t leave any gaps uncovered. Seek out people who are experts in their field and hire them, learn from them, or partner with them. Not everyone on the team needs to be an employee – your team can be made up of freelancers, advisors, and mentors as well as full or part-time employees.

Think ahead to the future.

“As a serial entrepreneur, you’re always looking for what the next great adventure is going to be as well as how to leverage and take advantage of any changes that are happening,” says Kalish. His advice is to not only think about what’s happening now, but what might change in the future.

Look for opportunities.

You always have to keep your finger on the pulse and think a few steps ahead. “Really try to understand where the market is moving,” advises Kalish. Observe what’s going on in the business world and analyze those changes. Look at which sectors are leading and which ones are lagging behind. Think about ways to use or incorporate new technology to improve existing business processes. Think ahead to what might come next in technology, AI, and global business trends.

Don’t be afraid to take risks.

Risks are simply part of doing business, especially when you’re bringing a new product to market or entering a new field. The key is to take calculated risks where you’ve fully weighed your options, thought about the pros and cons, and are making a fully informed decision. Take risks wisely, don’t just dive in on a whim without doing your due diligence first.

Be prepared for change to happen quickly.

“We went from sharing everything, from bicycles and cars to apartments, and then all of sudden sharing nothing,” Kalish said, highlighting the almost instantaneous shift to a remote economy. The pandemic upended everything from industries to the very way we work, and many of those changes will be long-lasting. No one could have predicted the overnight shift to remote work, yet most businesses managed to adapt, often learning as they went along. Businesses that don’t adapt will quickly get left behind.

Whether you’re embarking on your first entrepreneurial journey, you’re an established businessperson, or anywhere in between, follow this advice to continue to grow and develop your business.

If you are looking for better ways to grow your practice, Perform Practice Solutions will help you tailor solutions to keep your practice thriving. Contact us and find out more about our packages at (833) 764-0178 and visit our Facebook page.

Reference: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashiraprossack1/2021/07/16/6-business-lessons-from-a-serial-entrepreneur/?sh=65ae9dcf2087]