Forecasting is the superpower every businessperson wishes they had. Predicting not just trends in the market but also in revenue, expenses and profit can provide a massive competitive edge.
Unfortunately, there is no program or application that can tell you everything you want to know about your financial future. With that being said, every bit of insight you can get is highly valuable knowledge that can pay dividends as time goes by.
More and more money management platforms now come with forecasting tools built in. Whatever tools you use today, it's important to choose solutions that don't just spew numbers at you. The right money management platform delivers data-driven insights you can use to transform your business into a more valuable enterprise.
Without a CPA in-house, business leaders can often struggle to accurately forecast their spending and revenue. One miscalculation can be devastating. To avoid that, here are four tools help to give entrepreneurs accountant-level insights:
1. inDinero
inDinero is an all-in-one accounting application that provides in-depth analysis on every aspect of your business's finances. In many ways, inDinero acts like an offsite, automated CFO that can combine numbers-heavy calculations with high-level insights.
Though it's built for lean startups, inDinero's tools can be valuable to companies of any size. Its forecasting model incorporates your company's financial history as well as its growth strategy, making it a great resource for procurement planning that goes beyond saving money. Its features can also keep you from having to spend too much time or money on accounting, which eats up more time than many young leaders expect.
2. QuickBooks
QuickBooks is an application that takes full advantage of all of the resources of its parent company, Intuit, has on offer. People who work for themselves make decisions for their business, and often they are guessing or deciding without all the insight or relevant information. Leveraging machine learning and data-driven insights, QuickBooks is becoming predictive and proactive, intelligently anticipating critical turning points, helping to make customers smarter and more confident in their decisions.
QuickBooks also allows you to share your business's reports with anyone, including your accountant. That way, you have the freedom to manage your company's money internally, externally or with a combination of the two approaches.
3. Pulse
Pulse is a hands-on money management app designed for small businesses. Using its full stack of financial management tools, Pulse users get enterprise-grade monitoring abilities without an enterprise-sized price tag.
The right money management platform delivers data-driven insights you can use to transform your business into a more valuable enterprise.
Pulse's biggest forecasting advantage is its cash flow-focused tools. Pulse compiles data about your cash flow starting with your company's first transaction. Pulse then takes this information, crunches it and spits out highly detailed forecasting around your future income and expenses. You can also localize this feature for individual clients, projects and expenses in order to understand how every addition might impact your company's financial future. What's more, you can export any portion of that data into a CSV file, making it easy to share with any external data whizzes you might be working with.
4. You Need A Budget
It's name says it all: You Need A Budget comprises a suite of tools that are necessary for anyone looking to squeeze every penny out of their business's budget. You Need A Budget prides itself on its platform-agnosticism, operating smoothly across multiple desktop, smartphone and tablet operating systems.
Because its design is tailored to personal use, You Need A Budget doesn't have quite the depth of features that some of its full-service peers do. What it lacks in depth, however, it makes up for in usability. You Need a Budget's platform lets you set financial goals, track them against your budget, and see if you're heading in the right direction relative to your personal hopes.
Every business needs to know where it's heading. While there's no such thing as a crystal ball for your company's financial future, these business forecasting tools come awfully close. There are many options out there so take the time to learn about each one and how they offer different features. Finding the one that fits your needs is the smartest way to see what's in store for your business.
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