How well do you manage your small business budget? This is a common question that is asked to business owners, either by an individual or a successful entrepreneur. Generally, business operation is always surrounded by tonnes of expenses, some of which even go unnoticed. There are a lot of misconceptions about budgeting. It seems difficult and time-consuming. But with the business budget template, the process can be much less daunting. It is one of the most important tools you can use to run your small business. Many small business owners skip this vital business management step. Now, It time to try  5 free small business budget templates to make budgeting easy to read and understand.

How can you make an informed decision about whether it is a good time to grow your business, purchase new inventory or assets, or give yourself a raise? The answer to this is clear, up-to-date budgets can really help.

A budget is a tool that will allow you to measure your ideal financial numbers against your actual figures. Effective budgeting requires regular calibration of the real business environment against the theoretical one. If this sounds daunting or time-consuming to you, fear not. There are online resources that can help you simplify the process. There are several downloadable customizable budget templates that you can access right now. And just to keep them within your budget.

Here, we are going to give you detailed information about what free small business budget templates are and how you can improve your business with it.

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What is a Small Business Budget Template?

For any business to operate successfully, maintaining financial information is paramount. This financial information, or so-called ‘budget’ is what really drives your company or organization. It is, therefore, impossible to imagine a business without documentation of budget.

From the technological point of view, virtually maintaining your business’ financial information is possible and yet, efficient too. This is achieved through the use of a small business budget template, which in simple terms, is a tool that allows business owners to prepare a budget to help manage all expenditures with ease.

Additionally, a small business budget template also helps business owners in making decisions that can be beneficial and further enhance the growth and development of the business. Without easy access to your financial information, many decisions become more challenging than they usually appear.

Why is a Small Business Budget Template Needed?

The importance of a small business budget template is very crucial, firstly because of the fact that this tool lets you prepare and analyze the various expenses that your business goes through at a given period of time. A small business budget template is an essential tool for business owners who want to take care of their business expenditures.

There are a few reasons as to how a business budget template can set you up for success:

  • Track cash flow, expenses, and revenue.
  • Prepare for regular business slowdowns.
  • Allocate your budget to the portions of your business that need capital most.
  • Plan for business investments and purchases.

Generally speaking, your business budget template can act as a business health scorecard if you invest in setting one up properly.

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How To Prepare a Small Business Budget

Traditionally, budgeting has been seen as restrictive and almost punishing. Budgeting is what one should do to be good business owners or something that must be done because you have been a bad business owner. Instead, consider looking at your budget from a different perspective.

Most people start with income and tinker with their expense amounts until they arrive at a balanced or surplus budget. This method usually leads to unrealistic projections and ends in frustration. Instead of a top-down approach, consider reverse engineering your budget by following these four simple steps:

Steps:

  • Form your income projections, and write those down outside of your budget template. Put this paper or spreadsheet away until after you have completed the next step.
  • Enter your expenses into your budget template. Be very honest in your entries, and include everything. Going through several months’ or even a year’s worth of accounting data or bank and credit card statements will ensure you capture all your spending. This is not the step where you want to try to eliminate expenses. Record everything, only excluding expenses you have already eliminated from your monthly or annual spending.
  • Now, enter your income from the projections you formed in step 1.
  • Review your budget. If your budget shows a projected loss, analyze your expenses and identify areas where you can reduce spending.

This approach makes sure you avoid the temptation of forcing your budget to balance. While you ultimately do want your budget to balance, or better, to show a cash surplus, forcing that by having unrealistic income or expense numbers will lead to frustration and resistance to the budgeting process.

Monthly or quarterly, compare your actual income and expense numbers to your budgeted numbers. Regular tracking helps identify problems before they become difficult to overcome or even insurmountable.

Here Are 5 Free Small Business Budget Templates Hand-Picked For You

Creating a budget and then never looking at it again is a wasted effort. In order to stick with a budget, you need to compare your actual numbers against your budgeted numbers on a regular basis. Because you will be referencing your budget on an ongoing basis, you want the tool you use to create it to be easy to use. Fortunately, you don’t have to spend a lot of money on fancy budgeting software. There are numerous free small business budget templates available online.

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Here is our list of the best small business budget templates available, so you can do just that.

1. Capterra

Capterra

Capterra’s small business budget template is a favorite of many small business owners. In this one simple Excel workbook, you can create your monthly budget, your annual budget and then compare your actual numbers to your budgeted numbers. It also has a convenient overview sheet, which gives users access to their performance at a glance. Capterra has included a detailed Instructions tab, which walks you through how to use the template step by step. Start here to save yourself hours of time and frustration.

As a bonus, there are numerous resources linked on the Instructions tab, to help you create the perfect budget for your small business.

It is downloadable from Capterra includes both a monthly and annual breakdown that can be used on an Excel spreadsheet. Imagine going into a month having no idea what you were going to spend or how much money you were going to make, as stated by the website. If you are interested in having money in your bank account at the end of the month, you might want to start thinking ahead. The goal of a budget, they say, is to have a “fixed point to track your progress against”.

2. Seth David’s Small Business Budget Template

Seth David’s Small Business Budget Template

This is the free small business budget template that uses your business’ chart of accounts as its basis, making it really easy to compare your actual numbers to your budgeted numbers. Take the time to read the full article on their website and watch the video, which explains in detail how to use the template. As always, Seth’s instructions are clear, and his enthusiasm for the subject matter will have you actually looking forward to working on your budget.

3. Annual Business Budget in Google Sheets

Annual Business Budget in Google Sheets

Now, you don’t need to look very far to find a range of budget templates. Google’s Template Gallery provides a variety of visually striking, easy-to-use templates. You can make a comprehensive budget for your small business right from Google Sheets.

Simply navigate to your Sheets, and then click on Template Gallery. The tables and graphs in the Summary tab offer an illustrative glimpse into your income and expenses, quickly getting you up to speed on where you stand financially. To fully appreciate the power of the template, review the Summary tab after you have entered your budget figures. The tables and graphs on this tab will give you a quick visual representation of your income and expenses, making it easy to see where you stand at a glance.

4. PDFConverter.com 15 Best Budgets

Excel workbook that tries to do everything, PDFConverter.com has compiled a library of 15  free small business budget templates. These templates cover a wide range of budgeting needs, from a very basic overview of your business income and expenses to marketing budget templates. The startup budget template for would-be entrepreneurs still in the planning phase of their businesses is particularly helpful for newbie business owners. The cash flow template is perfect for identifying and plugging cash flow leaks.

5. Microsoft Office Template

Microsoft Office Template

Microsoft Office Template focuses exclusively on expenses, but it does that job extremely well. There are tabs for planned and actual expenses, a tab for automatically calculated variances between the two and an expense analysis tab complete with pie charts. Microsoft Office has a wide range of budgets for every need. They feature charts and graphs of your variances from month to month.

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Bottom Line

Sort it out which of these small business budgets is useful in outlining the goals for your enterprise. In order for any of these templates to work, however, you must keep on top of your daily expenditures as part of your regular routine. When you get closer to really mastering your cash flow, you will be better equipped to grow your business in a sustainable manner for years to come. Budgeting is one of the most important things you can do to ensure your business’ success. Fortunately, small business owners can choose from a number of free small business budget templates to help streamline this process.

Thus, picking the right tool, following a simple process and regularly comparing your budgeted and actual numbers will ensure your budgeting, business and eventually, success.

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