You may have thought being your own boss was going to give you the financial freedom you always wanted. However, running a new business is similar to buying a new home. You think everything is great and you go through an ecstatic stage, until one day everything comes crashing down.
You realize that you have to pay a mortgage, cable, electricity, and even gas. It can be stressful and cause you to lose focus. In fact, some Americans would rather sleep than worry about money, according to Debt.com.
These expenses continue to add up and you realize just how much maintenance your house takes. You are going to experience the same shock when running your own business. Fees are going to be a natural part of anything successful, so you need to prepare yourself.
1. Credit Card Processing Fees
One of the main expenses that business owners forget about are credit card processing fees. While the average consumer might love to use their card, in order to get a credit card processor, you’re going to have to pay a fee, usually 3 percent of the transaction fees processed.
2. Insurance Fees
You may find yourself needing multiple types of insurance depending on the type of business you operate. At the very least, you will have to pay for public liability and employer liability coverage. However, it’s also suggested that you have negligence, illness, injury, and property insurance as well for you and your employees.
3. Employees
Employees are going to cost you since they aren’t going to work for free. You also have to make sure you have maintenance and cleaning services hired for your office to keep employees in a clean environment.
Preparing for Millennials, who are demanding health insurance and other benefits from their job, is going to be critical. You may need to budget more for your employees than you originally planned. However, to avoid a high turnover rate, you must be accommodating as a boss.
4. Shrinkage
If you own a physical store, you probably aren’t going to plan for shrinkage, but this is something very common in the retail industry. In fact, it was reported that U.S. retailers lose 1.4 percent of their total sales annually on shrinkage, which accumulates to $32 billion in lost goods every year.
Although shrinkage isn’t something you can plan for, it can happen for multiple reasons. This could be an error from a vendor, theft in the store or just damaged goods.
5. Permits and Memberships
All companies are required to purchase the right permits and licenses to occupy their building and operate machinery in it.
In addition, you may have to pay dues to become part of the business community, joining clubs and other organizations. While this might be a great marketing strategy, this is will cost you a lot of money that you may not have if you didn’t properly plan for the occasion.
6. Supplies for the Office
You are going to be in charge of paying both the utilities and supplies in your office. While it might be nice to think that these supplies are just going to appear when you walk in, they aren’t. This is now your job responsibility as the boss.
Take responsibility for your team and give them the supplies they need to succeed. Your role is to provide them with the right tools now. Utilize strategic purchasing to save money while keeping everyone supplied with what they need.
7. Professional Services
Most businesses look into having a lawyer on retainer, just in case something happens to their business. However, small business owners don’t always realize this and will see that paying for these services is not easy. Between a financial advisor, lawyer, and other related jobs, you’re almost guaranteed to lose money at first when hiring professional services.
Don’t Make Common Mistakes
It’s important that you don’t make the same mistakes that so many new business owners make. Budget accordingly and you will find yourself able to escape any situation that you are thrown into.
Brian Horvath is a freelance writer from Michigan and founder of MyBusinessTalk. He is a journalism graduate and a regular contributor to numerous online magazines and journals.
