Ways to Save Money for Your Small Business

Many small business owners waste their limited resources on services/products that they don't need.  Here are some simple tips for how to save money so you are not going broke before you have even started your endeavor:

• Open a FREE small business checking account at major bank such as Capital One that will allow you to open an account with a deposit of about 200 dollars.  Skip the credit cards if you know you will not have much money to start.  No sense in getting in over your head. 

• Never order checks from your bank.  Waste of money.  Open the bank account and then go online to find cheaper alternatives such as Checks in the Mail or Checks Unlimited.   Just about any place has cheaper checks than your bank.  You really don't need a big, fancy binder for all your checks either.  Save your money.

• Never buy deposit slips.  Just get a stack of blank counter deposit slips from your bank for FREE.  They work just as well.  You can still use them to make deposit in the overnight deposit slot or in the drive through.  

• Keep a simple spreadsheet to manage your finances such as an Excel file or a simple Quickbooks program.  If you are starting off with little funds, you don't need the most expensive program on the market.  I bought an older version of Quickbooks for $9.99 off of ebay and it works just as well because I did not need their online services or expensive payroll programs.  I can easily reconcile my spreadsheet with my bank statements on my own.  When you are starting off small, it is easy to do it yourself. Upgrade as your business expands. 

• Scared of doing payroll yourself?  No problem.  TKT Enterprises  offers a very simple and affordable payroll system you can download onto your computer that will help you do payroll.  The program calculates the taxes for you and helps you do your payroll tax deposits and end of the year tax forms.  All you have to do is input employee information and the hours they work for each pay period.   You can even do manual payroll checks and print out payroll stubs on regular paper to save more money.  This program is very affordable at $14.95 for the whole year.  If you stick with this software, than your yearly upgrade is even cheaper (about half price).  You can't beat the price and it works great. 

• Consider using PayPal for credit card orders if you can't afford the high frees associated with processing credit cards.  Sure there are fees with PayPal that come out of the money you will collect.  However, PayPal is fine for online orders to start.  As you build your business, you can use the money you have made from PayPal to upgrade to other credit card processing services.  All of them are expensive, involve monthly fees, early termination fees and high charges for chargebacks.  Because of the costs, you want to make sure you are making money and can afford this investment before you sign that contract. 

Hope that these tips will help you save money in your small business.