5 Ways Small Business Owners Can Save Money

Excluding a few exceptions, most business owners want to make as much money as possible. The priority is obviously to keep the business afloat and to pay your employees. After all, without them, there’s no business to run! In basic terms, the next stage is to sell as much of your product or service as possible, but after that, it’s all about reducing costs and increasing the bottom line to enable growth while still maintaining a high quality of service.

Even costs which appear to be fixed may be negotiable, and it never hurts to ask.  If you’re a small business owner and are looking to improve profitability here are 5 simple ways to reduce your outgoings today.

1. Don’t Accept the Renewal Deal for Any Services

You’re a busy person, so it’s perfectly understandable that you’d be tempted to accept simply agree to a renewal offer from your ongoing service providers and contracts. However, you will find that it doesn’t take all that much effort to do a little research and comparison to find cheaper deals.

In fact, there are free services which will do this for you for business insurance, vehicle insurance, and business utility providers. There are considerable savings to be made by using online comparison sites as they’ll also take on the administration work to save you time as well as money.

2. Make Your Business Energy Efficient

Taking steps to improve your business’ energy efficiency is a great way to reduce your negative impact on the environment and can reduce costs. For example, replacing old lightbulbs with LEDs could reduce the energy used for lighting by as much as 80%. Consider introducing a more energy efficient heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system, turning computers off at night and reducing your printing and paper usage.

In addition, installing solar panels on your premises will generate free, renewable electricity for your business which will mean you need to buy less from a supplier.

3. Consider Every Expense – Do You Really Need It?

Before you buy equipment or supplies, take a step back to consider whether you really need it and if there are cheaper ways of procuring it.

You don’t always need to buy the latest model of something, and refurbished equipment is often far cheaper and just as effective. This also applies to your subscriptions as well, especially for business tools. You might consider cutting off time-tracking software for your logistics team and have a delivery driver app instead. Also, going paperless and investing in cloud-based storage will absolutely be cheaper and faster than printing and filing documents.

Leasing equipment or vehicles can sometimes be a better financial option. Resist the temptation to spend when you don’t need to, and you’ll see the benefits in your profit margin.

4. Hire an Accountant

To make sure you’re receiving all the financial benefits you’re entitled to (and paying the right amount of tax) you can consult an accountant. They may be able to identify allowances you could claim, certain tax rebates available on development costs and allowable expenses.

5. Work on Your Productivity

Your employees are one of your greatest assets, and you need to enable them to perform to the best of their ability. This could be by providing them with a comfortable working environment and better equipment or software applications so they can perform tasks more efficiently. If someone leaves your company, consider redistributing their workload amongst other employees rather than hiring a replacement.