Entrepreneurs and start-up founders often struggle with dealing with finances. It’s a different set of skills than starting and running a business. Creating a company often requires you to think in broad and bold terms, while financial management should be precise and detail-oriented.

This doesn’t mean that a business owner can’t handle the finances of their company on their own. It just takes a bit of commitment and a change of perspective in some cases. Even with that said, sometimes it might be useful for even a small business to have a professional financial advisor at hand.

Cash flow management is key.

Most startups fail for a variety of reasons, but one is far more common than others -- running out of money. You need to know where every single dollar is coming from and where every single dollar is going.

If you don’t stay on top of your cash flow, you are going to put your business in a very dangerous position. It doesn’t matter how good your idea might be when you run out of money you hit a brick wall. Establish a budget and stick to it.

Track and monitor all spending.

With a new startup, there are going to be expenses coming at you from every direction. Hiring a full-time staffer to handle the books in the beginning isn’t very budget-friendly, so use accounting software to remain organized.

Not only will this help with cash flow management, but it also makes it much easier when tax time rolls around every year. As you grow and the accounting becomes more complex, you will need to consider hiring a professional. 

Day to day expenses

It often happens that day to day expenses of running a business become more overwhelming than the initial investment needed to start it. That’s because they tend to multiply and are notoriously hard to calculate. This is something to consider before taking out a loan, in addition to figuring out ways of managing them more efficiently.

One of the things to do is to keep track of all expenses and make changes in your plans based on this data on regular bases. It’s relatively easy to do once you establish a system for it and it saves quite a lot of money in the long run.

Every minute of your time has monetary value.

I’m going to keep this short and sweet: time is money.

Nothing has more monetary value than your time. You only get so much of it every day, so take that into consideration when you are planning your schedule and day-to-day duties. Every second you spend doing something unrelated to your business is time (and money) wasted.

Create an emergency fund

As the old saying goes, you should fix the roof while the sun is shining. This is something that a lot of business owners forget once their company is starting to do well. They see that as an opportunity for growth and expansion, which is fine, but it’s also important to use the prosperous times to create an emergency fund.
Decide on the amount you plan to set aside every month and stick with it no matter what and regardless of how well you’re doing there’s going to be a time when you’re going to use that fund in one way or another.

Forming partnerships

Business partnerships are the cornerstones of the corporate world. In order to make sure your business is financially stable you should try to enter into long-term partnerships with important clients as soon as you can. This is especially imperative for smaller businesses. By having someone who can order your products in advance, or pay for your services in the same manner you’re avoiding a lot of the risks that smaller businesses can’t handle.

Keep in mind that this often means tying the fate of your business to another which can be scary for a lot of people and for good reasons. This is something to consider before making a deal.

Focus on customer acquisition.

Without customers, you have no business. The sooner you figure out how to acquire customers and scale, the greater the chances are of your company making it. Once you identify different acquisition channels, work on optimization to lower your costs.

It’s impossible to test every possible acquisition channel at first, both in terms of time required and cost, so focus on the most lucrative opportunities. Once you successfully scale those, you'll have the financial capability to explore other channels.

Consulting the experts

There are experts who should be on your payroll as soon as you’re able to afford them because their expert knowledge is worth the cost and can easily be translated into actual profit. The first expert to hire is a tax attorney either in an advisory or in a full-time capacity. A corporate lawyer should follow because when the business starts to expand there are much more rules to understand and keep track of.

Their services can sometimes be very expensive but they can also save you a lot of money by avoiding lawsuits and using the tax laws to your advantage.

Saying no

The best advice about financial stability is also the hardest one to follow – you should always try to live below your means. That means that most the problems could be solved just by saying no. It seems easy -but try it for a while and you’ll see that it takes courage and character.

Business owners need to think about their finances in broad terms as well as in details. This mostly means that they should try to expand the company while keeping it steady and this is done by diversifying its reach and income sources.

Make sure you pay yourself.

Your hard work and dedication to your business alone isn’t going to put food on your table -- you need to pay yourself. While you don’t need to compensate yourself with a big fat salary in the beginning, make sure you pay yourself enough to live.

Give yourself enough to live comfortably and focus on building your business. When you eliminate personal financial stress, it allows you to stay ultra-focused on your business. You can’t eat ramen noodles forever. Give yourself some padding and comfort.

Know your tax obligations.

When you’re pre-revenue, taxes may not be high on your list of concerns — but they should be. Hiring a tax professional with early-stage startup experience is the best way to make sure you’re staying on top of all of your federal, state and local obligations, from payroll taxes, sales taxes and 1099s to filing your quarterly taxes.

Decide whether you need to pursue outside funding. 

The answer isn’t always “yes.” I always advocate bootstrapping for as long as possible to avoid dilution. Funding is a good option if you’re looking to accelerate your growth — it’s not for market/product validation. If you do decide to pursue funding, know your options and create a funding game plan. There are more and more ways to land funding — even for embryonic startups — and all roads do not lead to VC. Often, in the early stages, friend and family are your best first option. Also consider angels, super-angels or even crowdfunding, an increasingly interesting option for raising capital.

Establish financial goals.

Rather than just say, “I want to build a multi-million dollar company,” you need to break financial goals down into reachable and measurable ones. 

Monthly, weekly or even daily revenue goals allow you to stay on track and make the adjustments necessary for constant growth. You can even set milestones to hit along the way, giving you a lot of smaller goals to constantly hit. Knocking out little goals can give you the confidence needed to keep powering through the entrepreneurial journey.

Remain optimistic but prepare for the worst.

You never know what can happen when starting a business, so it is best to prepare yourself for the worst possible situation. Don’t quit your job and eliminate your main source of income until your business can replace that income.

Keep reserves -- both personal and business -- in an emergency savings account. You can never be too prepared for bad situations. Sadly, they do happen, often when you least expect them. As an entrepreneur, you are responsible for your retirement, so when you start making money consider things like a Roth IRA and some investments, even small ones. Anything is better than nothing -- consider micro-investingopportunities or allocating funds on a monthly basis to an online platform like E*TRADE. I found their fees to be on the low side.