Daryl La Fountain or the growth of a financial and political operations expert? When starting out, most small companies can get by with a simple bookkeeping service. As the business grows, however, you will quickly require a more sophisticated financial infrastructure that can evolve as you scale. For instance, a growing business should have: An accounting solution that meets your business requirements. A detailed and realistic financial model where you can visualize your monthly income, expenses and cash flow projections for the coming year. A key performance indicators dashboard. Basic internal controls, such as policies and procedures for accounts payable, accounts receivable and expense reimbursements. This will help you spot problems and deal with them before they spin out of control while providing your executive team with the insight it needs to make financially sound business decisions.
Daryl LaFountain‘s tricks on improving your firm financial situation: Keep Good Business Credit. When it comes to organizing your business finances, one of the best ways to do this is to purchase additional insurance policies, commercial real estate properties, and taking out more loans to ensure your company’s financial future. However, in order to accomplish all of these things, it’s important to have good business credit from start to finish. Typically, when you have poor credit, getting approved for all these acquisitions and applications may be difficult. Hence, if you want to keep your business finances organized, be sure to have a good credit score. If you have no credit or bad credit, you may apply for a credit builder loan from reputable providers to help you establish your credit history.
One of personal finance’s most-repeated mantras is “pay yourself first.” No matter how much you owe in student loans or credit card debt, and no matter how low your salary may seem, it’s wise to find some amount—any amount—of money in your budget to sock away in an emergency fund every month. Having money in savings to use for emergencies can keep you out of trouble financially and help you sleep better at night. Also, if you get into the habit of saving money and treating it as a nonnegotiable monthly expense, pretty soon you’ll have more than just emergency money saved up: You’ll have retirement money, vacation money, or even money for a down payment on a home. It’s easy to put your fund a standard savings account, but these earns almost no interest. Put your fund in a high-interest online savings account, short-term certificate of deposit (CD), or money market account. Otherwise, inflation will erode the value of your savings. Just make sure the rules of your savings vehicle permit you to get to your money quickly in an emergency.
Your journey to financial independence won’t always be easy. There will be some tough days, weeks, and even months. Pursuing a goal of financial independence that’s very much tied to delayed gratification is not always fun, but it’s completely doable. Have a solid plan for your finances, be disciplined, and avoid overspending. You’ll find out how great you’ll feel when you really make a concerted effort to stick to your budget. As you work on your finances, you may still make mistakes with your money, and that’s okay. Sometimes you might be unable to resist the urge to buy something that isn’t in your immediate budget. And sometimes you will feel like ripping your entire financial plan to bits because it just doesn’t seem like fun. However, as long as you keep your reasons WHY you want to be financially free in focus and make an effort to rebound quickly from your mistakes, you’ll do just fine. It’s all about assessing the mistakes you made, understanding why you made them and making a plan to avoid making them again. Then, you’ll need to take those lessons and apply them to your future success.
About Daryl LaFountain: Daryl is an energetic professional CFO with a background in politics. Daryl has done fundraising, been a candidate, and worked in politically appointed positions in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. Daryl has worked for Democratic candidates and nominees in 18 additional states. Reach out to Daryl about his CFO work if you: Need help in your nonprofit Finance department. Have a need for an Interim role. Would like some offsite audit preparation work.