Budgeting and Tracking Expenses
- Costs of Goods Sold (COGS): These are the costs that are directly related to the items you sell. They include the payroll costs of direct labor, purchases of raw goods and/or inventory, purchases of directly related non-inventory items (like lubricants and packing materials), outside services used to help produce or sell your product, as well as other direct costs. Most of these costs are fixed, but the inventory purchases will obviously vary from month to month.
- Operating Expenses: All the expenses that didn’t go into COGs are budgeted and tracked as operating expenses. These include the payroll for administrative and support staff, non-inventory materials not directly related to the production of goods (such as office supplies), outside administrative services, rent, utilities, travel & entertainment, and loan Everything except utilities can be considered a fixed cost.
Benefits of Tracking Expenses
- Streamline areas of overspending: By tracking your actual expenses, you know immediately whether you are busting your budget with overspending, and if so, by how much. You then have two options. The first is to revamp your operations so as to streamline your overspending. This might mean changes to the sources and amounts of inventory and non-inventory items you purchase each month, as well as the size of your payroll, your use of outside services, and the amount you spend on travel & entertainment. The second option is to increase your budget for items that can’t be streamlined. Most businesses use both of these strategies to keep spending in check.
- See how your cash flow is affected with fixed vs. variable costs: You have immediate control over your variable costs, but fixed costs take time to change. If you see a lot of cash flying out the door due to high fixed costs, you can start planning ways to lower those costs. For example, you might want to find ways to cut your rent or your payroll. When too much money is being spent on variable costs, you can take steps to cut costs right away.
- Analyze spending patterns over time: Budget tracking helps you recognize trends. For example, inflation may increase the cost of your raw materials in a steady, predictable way. If that’s the case, you can incorporate this information into your budget going forward. Budgets also help you recognize seasonal spending patterns, which are extremely important in planning how much cash you’ll need on hand for the upcoming period.
- Realize areas of new opportunity for investing time and money: You might find that buying inventory in larger batches lowers your price per unit, but that you’ll need to enlarge your storage facilities to take advantage of this cost break. A budget will help you discover and plan for this and many other opportunities to lower your costs and/or increase your revenues. It can also show you when it makes sense to borrow money to finance your business’ growth.
