5 Ways To Reduce Small Business Overheads And Expenses

Small business owners don’t have endless funds on hand to pay for overheads and expenses. In fact, many small businesses struggle to make ends meet for the first few months or even years, calling on the need to find creative ways to reduce overheads and expenses. Understanding the difference between fixed and variable expenses, reviewing current charges, creating a budget, uncovering the right insurance, and outsourcing certain tasks are top tips to reduce your current overheads and expenses, and ultimately, improve your business efficiency.

Reducing Overheads & Expenses

Understand The Difference Between Fixed And Variable Expenses

Fixed costs are expenses that occur every month regardless of operations while variable expenses are changed month to month. Understanding the difference in your expenses is critical to determining which expense categories you can reasonably alter. Examples of fixed expenses include rent, salaries, phone bills, and bank charges. On the other hand, variable expenses include advertising, supplies, and travel. Take a look at your current expenses and decide which expenses fall into each category to help you better manage your cash flow and to reduce your costs.

Review Current Charges

The next way to reduce your overheads and expenses is to review current charges. Maybe you have a subscription that you aren’t using or are ordering too much inventory. Looking at your current costs on the income statement will help you understand where your money is being spent. Pick one or two categories that you think you can reduce and set a spending budget.

Create A Budget

Small business owners are constantly on the go, meaning they don’t usually spend the time creating a budget and reviewing the financials when writing their business plan. However, a budget gives your business guidelines when it comes to spending, putting more money back into your pocket each month. The extra few hours you spend a month creating a budget will help your business reduce redundant costs and generate additional profit. A great starting point for a budget is using the prior month’s financial statements and adjusting the accounts.

Find The Right Insurance

Your insurance coverage isn’t something you should be overpaying on. Instead, you should retain the insurance needed to fit your business needs. One way to ensure you aren’t overpaying is to use our instant quote generator, where you can get an estimate on market-leading insurance in seconds! Simply enter your occupation and expected revenue to get started. This gives your business options when it comes to cutting costs all while maintaining strong coverage.

Outsource Tasks

As a small business, you likely don’t have the funds to hire the needed staff for the accounting function. This is where outsourcing can be beneficial. Outsourcing certain tasks, such as bookkeeping and accounting, assures that your accounting function is receiving the proper attention without having to pay for full-time staff, saving money in the long run. You can also look at setting up some automations to help you optimise your business.

Summary

Cutting overheads and expenses is a critical aspect of running your business. Fewer costs while maintaining or even growing income means more money in your pocket at the end of each year. We can’t give you the answers to where your business needs to cut costs, but we can help you save on your insurance. Be sure to check out our instant quote generator today to get market-leading insurance that's affordable.