Many freelancers and small business owners feel overwhelmed when it comes to dealing with their finances. They tend to set up their businesses because of their specific skills and passions, so it’s only normal if the financial side of things isn’t a priority for them.

However, sooner or later, all freelancers and small business owners have to take stock of their finances to run a sustainable business. You need to know you’re earning enough to make ends meet and to support your own financial requirements in the long term.

If you’ve never paid much attention to your business finances, they’re likely to be in a mess, and the thought of going back through your previous finances probably feels like too much to handle.

I’ve therefore written this blog post to help you make a start if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the numbers in your business.

Managing finances can be a huge challenge for freelancers and small business owners. People don’t usually set up their own business because they love dealing with the financial side of things. More often than not, they do it because they’re passionate about their work and they want to develop their passion into something meaningful for them.

As a result, I sometimes get asked about how to manage your business finances as easily as possible. A lot of freelancers and small business owners feel overwhelmed when it comes to their finances, so keeping things simple is often the most effective strategy if you want to see results.

In this blog post, I’m sharing my top 5 tips to help you manage your business finances simply and effectively so you can feel in control of your small business.

One of the biggest struggles we have to deal with as freelancers and small business owners is the unpredictability of our income. This can be challenging not just from a financial point of view but also in terms of our mental health. Not knowing precisely what our income is going to be from one month to the next can leave us feeling anxious and constantly worried.

As freelancers, our business expenses tend to remain fairly consistent. However, our workload (and therefore our income) fluctuates. There will be some months when we’ll have lots of work and others that will be much quieter.

The uncertainty and the fluctuating cash flow can be very difficult to manage, especially if you’re dependent on your freelance income to cover your everyday costs. Here, I’m sharing 5 ways to help you even out your small business cash flow so you don’t have to suffer during those periods with less client work.

I often get asked to recommend invoicing tools that can handle multiple currencies. I work with lots of freelancers and small business owners all over the world who serve clients in different countries. They frequently find themselves working in more than one currency and therefore need to make sure their invoicing software is able to deal with their requirements.

If you find yourself in the same situation and you don’t have an invoicing tool yet, or if you aren’t happy with the one you’ve got, here I’ve put together a blog post with a round-up of the best tools out there.

Of course, I have my preferred invoicing tool, but the other week I put a call out to my email subscribers to find out which tools they recommend. I received some really valuable replies and input, so read on for some of my subscribers’ tips and advice too.

Whenever I’m asked how to create a small business budget, I always point people in the direction of my business budgeting spreadsheet. The method I teach encourages you to use real spending data from the last 12 months to predict your expenses for the coming year. But what if you’re new to freelancing and you don’t have any spending data to base your budget on?

This is a problem that most small business owners encounter at the start of their freelance journeys. And since having a budget is the first step to understanding your business expenses and setting your rates, it can be a significant stumbling block when it comes to getting your prices right.

In this blog post, I’m sharing 3 steps to help you create a budget when you don’t have any data to base it on, so you can set the right rates for your business from the very beginning.

After the dark winter months, people often feel as though spring is the start of something new or an opportunity to inject life into an old project. Many houses get a good spring clean, and this often makes homeowners feel a lot better.

As small business owners, we can take a leaf out of their book. Spring is as good a time as any for us to clear out our business finances and make room for new business growth.

It’s a good idea to get your finances in order whenever you feel the need. By organising your numbers and properly understanding them, you’ll be able to see where you should be strengthening and how you can develop your business moving forward.

In this blog post, I’m giving you some ideas if you feel inspired to spring clean your business finances over the coming weeks.

The fear you feel as a freelancer and small business owner when you have no client work is real. Even if you’ve been really busy in the lead-up to a few days without paid client work, you might find yourself worrying.

It’s completely normal to feel this way because if your business isn’t making money, it means you’re not making money to cover your personal expenses.

Fortunately, the situation usually resolves itself. You often find that as soon as you get concerned about where your next client project is coming from, so much work pours through the door that you don’t know where to start! In the meantime, instead of making the most of those rare days without client work, you’ve wasted them worrying.

In this blog post, I want to help you embrace those days when you don’t have any client work so you can make the most of your downtime.