Making Your Business Work Efficiently, Effectively and Profitably
If you’ve recently set up a business, or are planning on starting a business, you’re far from alone. Right now, increasing numbers of people are trying their hand at running their own store – brick and mortar or online – as a means of generating an income. This is understandable and there are countless potential reasons behind it. The pandemic has seen many people lose their jobs, whether that’s through company collapse or redundancy.
Starting your own business gives you more security and control over your work and your income. Many people have also been furloughed or out of work long enough to find that their previous positions simply weren’t right for them. They’re looking for independence, control and the opportunity to work in a way that suits them, their lifestyle and their interests.
Running your own business can offer all of this and more, allowing you to build your own fortune, rather than earning someone else’s on their behalf. If you’re planning on setting up your own business, however, you’re going to have to get to know a lot of different things that will keep things afloat and successful. Here are just a few areas of focus that should help to get your journey off to the best start possible!
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Get Started on the Right Foot
There are a few important steps that you need to take when starting a business and, while these may not be fun, they are essential. They can help to make sure that your business is set up and runs properly, according to the law. Getting these basics right can make or break your business, so it’s important that you prioritize them.
Getting the Assets Needed to Operate
Business owners need a variety of assets to operate, which may include equipment, vehicles, hardware and software, just to name a few. If you need packaging supplies, Packaging Chimp offers a wide range of boxes, mailers, protective packaging, and warehouse supplies to meet your needs. You’ll find high ratings and reviews on the website.
Register as Self-Employed
When you start your own business, you’re going to be working for yourself rather than working for someone else. This comes hand in hand with countless perks. You take control of your own career and career path. You don’t have to answer to anyone else. You can choose the field and industry that you work in – whether that’s something you’re personally interested in or simply something that is profitable.
You can choose where you’re based, where you work from, what hours you work, what you sell, who you deal with and so much more. But you do also need to register as self-employed, as you will have to file your own taxes and pay other essential contributions. Registering as self-employed will let the government know that you’re working for yourself and will file your own self-assessment at the end of each fiscal year.
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Register Your Business
You are also going to need to register your business. You can do this with Companies House. This helps you to separate your personal assets and finances from your business’ assets and finances. Hopefully, all goes well and you experience success. But should your business experience financial hardship and fail, you don’t want your own funds being lost or attorneys turning up at your personal door.
Instead, you can separate your business and personal finances and assets, meaning that you don’t lose your home, car or other personal essentials should your business run into hardship.
Hire an Accountant
As we briefly mentioned above, you’re going to have to file your own taxes when you run your own business. Of course, if you’re savvy with numbers, you can do this yourself. But the vast majority of business owners prefer to use an accountant. This can help to eliminate risk when it comes to figuring out how much tax you owe and can also mean you benefit from someone who has in-depth knowledge of the system and what you can claim as expenses and deductions.
Filing taxes can also be extremely time consuming, so by handing this task over to an accountant, you can save yourself a lot of time and focus your energy in different, more profitable areas of business operations.
Maintaining Your Privacy from the Outset
When you start out, chances are you would rather use a lot of your own resources you already have in a bid to save costs. But this can really impinge on your privacy. You don’t want customers – happy or unhappy – to have access to your personal contact details. This can result in issues ranging from calls during unsociable hours to flooded inboxes and even people turning up at your home. Here are some steps to maintain your privacy from the get go.
Have a Business Address or Use a Forwarding Address
Let’s start with your business address. When you set up your small business, you will find that you legally have to register your business to an address. Of course, it may feel easiest to set this up to your personal address – especially if this is where you will be working from. However, when you take into account that your registered business address will be freely available to members of the public, you may want to reconsider. If you have a business address, register your business here – for example, if your business operates from a commercial premises. If you work from home, you can always hire a business address. There are plenty of virtual locations and you can have any business correspondence sent there passed through to a forwarding address that you can reach.
Invest in a Business Phone Line
Again, you can be tempted to use your personal phone number as your business number. Many first time business owners have a small budget and will want to minimize costs by using the phone that they’re already paying for business purposes. But you will soon reconsider this when you’re receiving calls around the clock and when your personal messages start to get lost within the business messages. Instead, you need to make sure that you invest in a business line.
This may mean spending money on an extra device and contract, but it should be considered a basic part of business operational costs. You can also help yourself to manage your work life balance better by leaving your business phone on “do not disturb” outside of business hours. It can also help you to avoid incidents where mistakes are made, such as sending personal messages or pictures to clients, partners or other professional individuals.
You also don’t want to accidentally send a message intended for your partner or best friend to a potential client or business partner. Separating the personal from the professional is essential when it comes to maintaining effective and professional business operations.
Create a Business Email Address
In the same way that you need a business address and a business phone, you’re going to need a business email address. Not only does this look more professional – giving customers, clients, partners and others more faith in your abilities and your service – but it can prevent your personal inbox from getting flooded with business emails and your business inbox from getting flooded with personal emails or emails from mailing lists.
Know What You’re Selling
This may sound like an absolute basic, but all too many business owners jump in the deep end without really understanding what they’re selling or to who. This can result in all sorts of issues down the line that could ultimately destroy your company. Here are some steps that can help to keep things viable and profitable.
Product Design
Product design is a fun part of the process. It allows you to take market research, determine what people want and then bring that idea to life. You may have to collaborate with a team or network of professionals to get what you want, but this is an enjoyable and rewarding process!
Manufacturing
Whatever you settle on selling, chances are, you’re going to need to engage with some sort of manufacturing process to bring it to life. There are a number of ways to go about this. The two most common and popular are in-house manufacturing or outsourced manufacturing. Both have their benefits and drawbacks.
Let’s start out with in-house manufacturing. Often, this isn’t the best option for small business owners. When you manufacture in house, you have to hire out a premises (such as a factory), buy all sorts of expensive equipment and hire and train staff to use the machinery and equipment to create your products. Whether that’s compressors from https://cbeuptime.com/compressor-central/reciprocating-compressors/, conveyor belts or anything else, you will have to make a big initial investment.
As your business grows and expands, you may find that this is actually the best option for you, as it cuts out the third party costs associated with outsourcing and can maximize your profits. It’s definitely an option to keep in mind for when your business has established itself and is making steady profits.
Outsourcing, on the other hand, tends to be better for startups. Sure, you have to pay a third party to manufacture your goods, but you don’t incur the costs mentioned above and you have the flexibility to change your products more easily should you find that the market doesn’t react to your original products the way you planned.
Product Testing
Always make sure to test your products after the manufacturing process. This will make sure that they are safe and suitable for use by the public.
As you can see, running a business takes a lot of thought and effort. But you will eventually get there. Consult with an attorney, a CPA, and a financial advisor regarding business issues. These preliminary steps should help you along the way!
Good luck!
Ken Boyd
Author: Cost Accounting for Dummies, Accounting All-In-One for Dummies, The CPA Exam for Dummies and 1,001 Accounting Questions for Dummies
(email) ken@stltest.net
(website and blog) https://www.accountingaccidentally.com/