As well as the issues of cultural and language differences, there are also challenges of positioning yourself successfully among competitors and marketing your brand so that it stands out. However, the main issue that you will have to address is that of your budget. It might be easier than ever to expand your business reach, but that doesn't mean that it comes without costs. Knowing the cost of international expansion makes it easier to get right, and keeps your business safer. If you're considering international expansion, remember to factor in the following expenses.

The Budget Big Three

There are going to be many costs to take into account, but the big three should be your priority. Make sure that you understand:

• Exchange rate
• Interest rates
• Inflation rates

Take the time to understand how the big three work in your new geographies and your financial planning will be more realistic and much healthier. Never assume that everything is the same from country to country. In some nations, costs will even vary by municipality, so you’re going to need to dedicate some time to some serious and in-depth financial planning.

[ymal]

Physical Requirements

While it is possible to start selling your product around the world from your existing office, many countries will require you to have a physical outlet in their country. Knowing the local laws and getting your premises organised before you even start to sell is essential. Renting a property can be a big cost so you need to know if it’s needed. You will also need to decide whether you’re going to hire local workers to run your international branch. That will mean knowing the laws regarding wages and working hours. Look for help from those that can assist you. Companies like INS Global can make sure that you have got your budgeting right when it comes to paying the right minimum wage in China, which can be made very complex very quickly due to different municipalities having different minimum wages. Always find people, services, and resources on the ground and you’ll make it easier to leverage your position in a new market.

Your Exit Plan

One of the main cost considerations that many first-time entrepreneurs overlook is the cost of closure. Not every new business expansion is going to be a success, and it’s not good practise to simply pack up and head elsewhere. A budgeted exit plan is essential, even if it’s something that you end up never needing. You might find in some countries that closing a business is a lot more expensive than opening one, so your research is going to be essential. The last thing that you want is to lose more money than expected through the exit process. That can affect your already established brand security at home, and that’s an unnecessary risk that can be avoided with some simple foresight.

From e-commerce companies that are working from a home office to mega-corporations extending their reach further than ever, accessing the global audience has never been easier. However, as with any business growth, there are inherent risks. Budget is going to be a major factor in terms of your success, so make sure that your research is robust and that you have the finances needed to cover every aspect of your predicted expenses. Get your bottom line right and your international growth will be safer, more natural, and more profitable.

It’s not just UK residents that would be impacted. While experts predict that a full-blown recession could be on the cards, it’s also believed that it will negatively influence various regions within the EU, with Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and France most likely to feel the consequences. Indeed, even countries as far afield as America could be adversely impacted.

This means that it makes sense to have a plan in place – preferably, one that includes a financial safety net to combat any uncertainty or financial difficulties that come on the back of the UK’s exit from the EU.

With this in mind, here are a few handy tips to turn you into a post-Brexit super saver.

Draw up a preliminary budget

Budgeting is considered essential to good money management, but not everyone puts this theory into practice. There are very few of us who cut our costs as much as we feasibly could, but with the possibility of a no-deal Brexit looming, you’ll want to not only reduce your immediate expenditure, but identify any additional areas where you could decrease your outlay even further should this become necessary. With this in mind, we recommend that you spend some time drawing up a table of your incomings and outgoings, so you can work out what you could go without well in advance of it becoming a necessity.

Keep an eye out for more economical alternatives

Although UK PM Boris Johnson remains adamant that the UK will leave the European Union before the end of the month, the reality of Brexit remains little more than academic, but it’s unlikely to stay this way forever. Recession is a very real possibility, so even if you don’t want to go the whole hog immediately, you should already be looking to make small savings where you can. This doesn’t mean going without entirely; rather, it means swapping your Heinz baked beans for own-brand alternatives, and visiting comparison sites; for everything from travel, utility bills and iGaming. For example, in regards to online casinos, with a generous multistep welcome package, Dunder is a solid choice, giving you the chance to play the games you enjoy without breaking the bank, or sites like Compare the Market for insurance, and Trivago for travel.

Review your interest rates

One of the big difficulties with Brexit is that nobody can truly predict how it will affect the economy. This means that interest rates could do almost anything, either remaining low if the financial landscape worsens or rising along with inflation. However, there is one way to know for certain what your future spending on credit products will look like, and that’s by fixing your interest rates. Experts suggest that to safeguard yourself against what’s ahead, your best bets are to either switch to a lower rate or consolidate your debt so you can accurately plan ahead.

Isn’t it time you started making some changes?

That may be true, but the rest of the 99.99% of things are quite heavy on the bank account. Between bills, school, food, children, girlfriends, wives, entertainment, and subscriptions, how can anyone keep accurate track of their money? Personal finance is the collective term used for managing your money at home. It encompasses everything from diapers to government bonds. Here are steps one must take to ensure that every cent is accounted for.

Seek Advice

Seeking advice is an invaluable tool for any person that wants to keep their personal financial plan on the straight and narrow. Find an expert you can extract information from and mold your strategies around these insights. If you don’t have access to a professional financial planner, MoneyTaskForce.com is a great tool to keep you up to date on trends and news. Big-time search engines also have their financial sections you can look at. The idea is to get a strong feel of how successful people work with their money.

Set Goals

Every person needs goals. A person without goals is probably not going anywhere. Same goes with money. Money is a means--a proof of value. What you do with it determines your wealth. Having a financial plan is crucial to this. Figure out what your goals are. Do you want that new motorcycle? Do you want to save enough to pay for your child’s college? Do you want to take copy-cat selfies in Bali with friends? None of these things can be responsibly done on a whim. Determine a series of goals and attach timelines to them. Have a short, medium, and long term goal. Short is within the year. Short is that vacation mentioned earlier and whatever other purchases you may take on. Medium has a range of five to ten years. Medium is that motorcycle and your eye on that nice apartment in the city. Long term is looking towards the horizon towards retirement. Having a solid plan to stay afloat during your unemployed golden years is always a good idea.

Set Up A Budget

Your primary tool to accomplish what you want financially is the budget. Your budget is a set guideline as to how much you’re allowing yourself to spend within a given time frame. It can be simple or it can be complicated. Like most things, the answer is somewhere in the middle. The Goldilocks quotient of any good budget means that you’ll be aware and somewhat challenged by the boundaries, yet not completely restricted. Ease of use still plays a factor in a financial plan. It’s not all about spending as little as possible. It’s about understanding your habits, curtailing the unnecessary ones, and rewarding the good ones.

[ymal]

Create Safety Nets For When You Splurge

The tendency for anyone under an extremely strict budget is to accrue a feeling of entitlement. “I’ve been so good with my money, I deserve a night out.” This is dangerous. Anything you feel like you “deserve” is absolutely undeserved in the world of personal finance. That attitude primes you to go overboard and splurge way too much. Set up systems that ensure that you don’t go completely off the rails. A very common and highly effective way to do this is to squirrel away money without you even knowing. Have a relatively small percentage of your paycheck go to a savings account in a bank separate from where you have your checking account. Lose the account number. Lose the pin number. Lose everything pertaining to said account and just forget about it. This means you won’t feel the hit of this savings strategy, and you’ll have something to fall back on in case overdraft fees are in your immediate future. Make it as inconvenient as possible. That means that the only way to access that money is to physically go to a branch, wait in line, and retrieve it in person.

Pay Off Debt

Pay off your debt. It doesn’t matter how much money you have in your pocket, if you’re in debt, someone else owns that cash. Make an effort to pay off all your debt within a certain time frame. Let's say in your early years you took on a lot of debt to get life going the way you wanted it to. Pay extra on all of them, focussing on the ones with higher interest rates. Once the high-interest rate loans are paid off, pay that same amount total, but towards the other loans. For example, if you have three loans that each cost you $100 a month, pay that same $300 total towards the remaining two when one of them is paid off. This ensures that you pay off your debt as quickly as possible. It’s called the debt-paydown snowball effect.

Invest

Lastly, invest. Start investing and getting good at it as soon as you can. You have tons of options ranging from bonds to stocks, to real estate. The sooner you get into the investing game, the more you’ll focus on your long term goals and retirement. It’s never too early to start, but due to the nature of these plans, there is such a  thing as too late. You just have to choose the right one and tailor your plans around it. But be careful. There if you delve in stocks and bonds, there is a gambling aspect that is sewn into the system itself. Your goal is to buy low and sell high, of loan out big to get an even bigger return. Due to the fluctuations in the market, this may not work in your favor. But if you do it right, you’re looking at a lifelong habit of making significant passive income.

Gone are the days where things were primarily cash or check. It’s all card and recurring payments. It’s absolutely necessary for one to be on top of their money. Being financially responsible means the difference between knowing when you’re in the red and somehow finding yourself deep in it. Financial responsibility is the key to getting ahead of the game and making sure that you can live a good, happy, worry-free life for years to come. That is the essence of good personal finance.

Below Finance Monthly hears from Adam Rice, VP Product Development, Centage Corporation, who touches on the need to expand budgets and care3fully account for said upgrades.

For many businesses, the third quarter is budget season. It’s a busy time for the finance team, as they meet with department heads and general managers to predict what the coming 18 months will look like for the business. As preoccupied as they are, I think they would be wise to take the time to upgrade to a cloud-based planning platform sooner rather than later. Why? Because in the end they will save themselves time, work more efficiently and achieve better results. Specifically, a cloud-based platform will enable the organization to move to a solid financial plan with a rolling forecast, updated on a monthly basis. And when you think about it, a rolling forecast is far more accurate than a budget created in July 2019 that attempts to paint a picture of what December 2020 will look like.

If changing horses in the middle of the race sounds daunting to you, consider all of the circumstances small to midsize companies face in today’s business environment.

SMBs Need to Step-Up to Global Challenges

SMBs have long been the backbone of the American economy and we count on them for job growth. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses employ 58.9 million people, accounting for 47.5% of the country’s total employee workforce.

Technology has fostered competition from all over the globe. Manufacturers are competing with countries where labor costs are low, as are retailers that are now competing head-to-head with ecommerce sites that offer international delivery. For example, the Alibaba Group, which owns AliExpress, earned over $30 billion in sales in a single day in 2018.

This kind of competition means that SMB leadership teams need to make better decisions faster. What is the impact of opening a new sales office in the Northeast, or applying for a loan to expand manufacturing capabilities on the P&L? What happens if we assume 20% sales growth but we only realize 17.5%? Business managers need to see the cause and effects of their decisions on the company’s financial statements - a feat that’s nearly impossible using a spreadsheet.

On the other hand, a cloud-based system allows financial teams to do what-if scenario planning quickly and easily. As with all things cloud-based that include intelligent APIs, it’s simple to connect multiple data sources together and then overlay analytics and data visualization to make smarter decisions.

Streamlined Implementation and Upgrades

SMBs have limited IT resources and they need to be extremely selective as to which platforms to purchase as a result. Investing in a project that ultimately fails can have devastating consequences, potentially threatening a company’s viability.

Cloud-based solutions tackle these challenges in multiple ways. For instance, many offer out-of-the-box workflows for financial reporting, forecasting, scenario validation and so on, which means implementation is streamlined. Upgrades happen automatically, which means IT resources are spared and end users get to automatically take advantage of new features and functionality. This is a critical consideration as many platforms are beginning to add artificial intelligence and machine learning to key tasks, such as compliance.

Scaling is also much easier, as native cloud-based platforms can scale up and down as a business grows or as seasonality affects demand.

Inherent Agility

Cloud-based systems often act like data warehouses, centralizing multiple data sources and tracking a wide variety of KPIs and metrics. This is critical functionality for business managers seeking to connect the dots and assess the cause and effect of their business decisions. And if the data is always on, meaning it’s pushed to the platform automatically, managers have up-to-the-minute insight into the health of the business.

Many platforms come with data visualization tools or dashboards that allow users to slice and dice information in myriad ways. The benefit here is that it allows all managers to view the data in ways that are meaningful to them. For example, the head of sales can monitor the key metrics that they care about with a higher degree of accuracy, and most importantly, drill down into the data to uncover the source of anomalies.

In fact, the data visualization tools allow the financial team to provide data-driven answers to the tough questions that CEOs, boards and leadership teams ask daily.

SMBs are on growth paths; increasing the size of their market share is always a top priority. As the business grows, and as planning becomes more complex, well designed cloud-based platforms can handle the complexity. These platforms let financial teams see into the future, test the impact of multiple scenarios and ultimately make faster decisions with confidence. They’re also far more likely to adapt to evolving business needs and goals. So while it may take a bit of work to transition this budget season, it will be time well spent.

Many people tend to splurge on a vacation, which is why they think that next year’s travelling will incur the same costs; this isn’t true at all. Keep in mind that we live in a cosmopolitan world where everything is available within your budget. In this article, we will guide you through five ways with which you can manage your travel budget, and keep in mind: wise spending will easily suffice for your tour when compared with spending carelessly.

1. Look for cheap flights

There's no need to travel to expensive airlines and especially on the business class. If you're traveling with your family, you can easily travel in economy. If you are well aware of the holidays in advance, you can book your flights around three to four months before the trip. Refrain from lusting over flight upgrades by giving some extra dollars. Always put a cut on your desires, especially when there's not even a need to fulfill them. Compare different airlines and choose one that easily fits within your budget.

2. Public transport instead of renting expensive cars

Keep in mind that the ethos behind a vacation or an international trip is to go on a social detox and give yourself a healthy slice of life. Back home you already have everything that you want, so why go the extra mile by splurging on expensive cars? If you’re traveling within the country and find yourself in an accident which was somebody else’s fault, you can get in touch with Scot Accident Claims. Their team will help you in filing a lawsuit. All in all, it is better to travel with local public transport.

3. Cook your food

Are you a good cook? How long can you keep yourself away from those delicious dishes you usually have at home? Just push yourself a little bit because that will help you in saving a significant amount of money. Instead of eating from restaurants and top-notch hotels, you can easily cook your food. People who often eat in a new place tend to get stomach issues and get short of budget very quickly.

4. Don’t splurge on cliché shopping items

If you’re visiting a very special location for the first time, why shop for clothes again? Pull yourself back from buying traditional items that are available back home. If you want to, buy souvenirs that can be gifted to friends and family members. Every travel destination has its specialty and often its own small-scale industry. There are many simple things that can be bought from the local markets of nay new location. Refrain from overspending as the idea of an ideal vacation is to enjoy yourself and not get stuck in those busy market places.

5. Stay at a friends or relatives place

Accommodation is an important element that will consume much of your money. Do you have friends and relatives at the destination you’re heading to? That’s a brilliant idea! Stay at their place and save on accommodation. Conventional hotels and resorts charge a lot of money for tourists. So you better be careful when choosing suitable accommodation. Even if you get a cheap hotel that has the necessities, give it a go since most of your time will be spent outdoor.

Lastly!

Enjoy yourself and make the most of your trip. Not many people get the opportunity to travel. Since you have it, it’s best to make some great memories.

As a result Jason Lin, CFO at Centage Corporation says CFOs are losing sleep over the end result. This is so far from ideal, which is why I’m offering these five recommendations to help financial teams sleep better.

1. Instill confidence in your data

I totally get why finance teams lack confidence in their budget data. Last year’s actuals are typically re-keyed into a budget spreadsheet, and manual data entry inevitably leads to mistakes. Worse, it’s incredibly difficult to spot where, in a series of spreadsheets linked together with macros, a zero may have been left out or numbers were transposed. And once the data is entered, it’s used for what-if scenario planning -- i.e. predicting the future -- which takes the budget even further away from the “truth.”

Finance teams can get a lot more sleep if they ditched the spreadsheet and replaced it with a tool that can pull data directly from their GLs. Not only will the data be accurate (and teams spared countless hours of data entry), the budget will be a replica of how the business is organized, making scenario planning a lot more accurate. Of course, the predictions may still be wrong, but at least the effects of those assumptions on the financial statements will be realistic.

2. Avoid forecasts that have major variances versus actuals

This is a tough one because there are so many external variables that can affect the actuals. What will the economy do? Will interest rates go up? Will new tariffs drive up manufacturing costs? How is that upcoming election going to shake out? In all honesty, attempting to predict market conditions in Q4 2020 in the summer of 2019 is a bit unrealistic. No amount of effort will change that reality.

My best recommendation: move to a rolling forecast that’s updated monthly, or at least once a quarter. Not only will it lessen the variances, but it will also allow teams to spot trends that have the potential to affect the goals set (positively or negatively) much earlier.

3. Test your assumptions for accuracy

I realize what a big ask this recommendation is. This issue of testing your assumptions for accuracy will never go away because, as mentioned above, there are way too many factors that affect performance but are way outside of your control.

While you can’t control what will happen, you can anticipate potential variances and put plans in place to respond to them. Scenario planning and what-if scenarios are your saving grace here. For instance, you can test the impact on your P&L if sales decrease by, say 10%, or if the cost of oil spikes. You might not like what you see, but at least you’ll know ahead of time the potential outcomes so you can warn the executive team upfront, and make contingency plans if your assumptions aren’t correct.

4. Meet your budget deadlines and be boardroom ready

When I hear the concerns of CFOs about meeting deadlines I like to tell people what Steve Player, noted business author and Program Director for the Beyond Budgeting Round Table (BBRT) North America, has to say about it. To paraphrase his viewpoint: starting earlier is a terrific way to build more errors and delays into your budget. Again, in the summer of 2019 you are attempting to predict what Q4 2020 will look like. Do you know the outcome of the 2020 election? Do you know whether we’ll continue to see massive flooding in the South and Midwest? How will either of these events affect your actuals?

The solution is to shift your focus to a continuous process. If you believe in planning, why not do it monthly? It makes no sense whatsoever to start earlier and earlier when it’s not humanly possible to predict what the world will look like 18 months from now.

5. Break down your company silos

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that when budgets are created in silos, they won’t mesh with one another. Marketing will spend the summer months coming up with campaigns to launch the following year, while sales will review their customer and prospect pipeline and make their own plans. There is no connection between the two.

Financial teams have two options to address the issue of silos. First, implement a collaborative budgeting tool so that teams can see how their plans affect one another. If sales is pinning a revenue number of an increase in new SMB logos, marketing needs to know that, and to allocate part of their budget for an SMB customer acquisition campaign. Second, view this as an excellent opportunity to take a more leadership, hands-on role in the business. Bring the two teams together, and help them to create a tighter plan.

I realize that some of these suggestions can seem blasphemous; finance teams have always created budgets, stayed in the back office, and put stakes in the ground in terms of assumptions. But given the pace of business change, the old ways aren’t cutting it anymore. These tips reflect the reality of business planning today.

If you want to enjoy a healthy annual profit margin and long-term success in your industry, you must take control of your cashflow. Here are four financial management mistakes your business must avoid.

1. No Emergency Fund

An emergency fund could help to keep your business afloat during a difficult time in your industry or when you received an unexpected bill. To ensure your company is never faced with financial hardship, aim to save a minimum of three months’ worth of corporate expenses, which could ensure your company’s survival should an issue arise.

2. Unnecessary Business Expenses

Many business owners believe they need to make large expenses to separate their brand from their rivals. As a result, they might pay a significant sum for the latest technologies, office equipment, or staff salaries.

It is, however, a smarter approach to adopt a more frugal mindset. For example, invest in second-hand products, haggle with suppliers, and find an affordable lease for your office or building space.

Never spend a penny more than you need to, even when your company is generating a superb return on its investment. By running a lean business, you’ll have more money available to overcome a financial obstacle.

3. Avoiding Insurance

The right insurance policy could help your business to make a swift recovery following onsite damage or compensation claims. Yet, many companies make the mistake of not choosing the right coverage to suit their specific needs.

There a wide range of options to suit different companies’ needs, such as business insurance, cyber and data risk insurance, and employers’ liability insurance. It is, therefore, important to consider the potential risks your organisation might face and to find an insurance policy to match.

If you fail to invest in the right insurance policy, your business could be liable for a considerable amount of money, should a client make a claim against you. For example, if you regularly provide professional advice and services to clients, you should learn more about professional indemnity insurance as well as public liability insurance. Reputable providers such as Hiscox can instantly provide coverage of up to £10 million with both professional indemnity insurance and public liability insurance so that your company aren’t caught out, with flexible policies tailored to your needs.

4. Failing to Budget

Many businesses are guilty of failing to budget each month, but it could be critical to your company’s success and survival. It ultimately helps a business owner to maintain a tight control of their finances, as they will know exactly how much money they will need to spend each month and where it is going.

Without a budget in place, you could fail to account for your tax obligations, insurance premiums, office expenses and more. If you spend too much, you may then need to apply for a business loan or run up debt on your credit card if you urgently need cash to pay for a debt repayment or corporate expense.

A CFO, by their very nature, is better at holding the purse strings than anyone else, but they’re not always affordable. You might think you have a tight grip on your finances, but without the necessary expertise, time, and visibility, you’ll run into serious problems later on down the line.

 So, what can you do if you can’t afford a full-time CFO? Darren Upson, VP Small Business Europe at Soldo, knows the answer.

The concept of the ‘virtual CFO’ was created to answer that question: they work remotely – seldom on a full-time schedule, and effectively act as an outsourced finance head. Virtual CFOs also benefit as they can deploy their strategic experience and services to a diverse set of clients, without ever setting foot in the actual office.

It’s a service that accounting firms are actually best placed to offer. Most good ones are equipped with the skills and the experience to take on financial administration without the overhead of a full-time finance lead; in fact, we’ve found that many of Soldo’s accounting partners effectively perform this role for clients already.

If you’re running a small business, you might be wondering if you require the service of a virtual CFO. Here are some key signs to look out for.

If you’re struggling to make the right calls, or if you don’t have the information to do so, virtual CFO services can help remove some of the fog around your numbers.

You need better insights to make better decisions

Data-driven decision-making is essential – and CFOs have the expertise to make these informed choices. After all, trusting your gut is high risk and can have unfortunate consequences. At worst, you can lose serious amounts of money; at best, you’ll fail to unlock the true value of some of your decisions. It becomes all too easy to focus on what has happened rather than what could happen in future – making it equally easy to miss the corrective actions that could align performance with strategic objectives.

Transparency and insight are key to making confident, responsible, and proactive (rather than reactive) choices. Virtual CFOs are often experienced accountants and can solve this problem by giving businesses clarity around their finances: helping them make sound, rational decisions.

If you’re struggling to make the right calls, or if you don’t have the information to do so, virtual CFO services can help remove some of the fog around your numbers: delivering meaningful insights into the trends affecting your business – and the opportunities that could be available to it.

You’re struggling to budget and forecast appropriately

This is a huge issue for startups and high-growth SMEs – especially those looking for that all important next round of funding. You need to prove to your investors that you’re on strong financial ground, and that means demonstrating a strong grasp on your budget, your goals, and your forecasting.

Your small business is no doubt full of brilliant people. But it’s probably not full of people who are excellent at financial planning. A permanent CFO might not be a hire you can make right now – but through an accounting firm, a virtual CFO can provide essential longer-term forecasting and analysis.

A permanent CFO might not be a hire you can make right now – but through an accounting firm, a virtual CFO can provide essential longer-term forecasting and analysis.

You’re growing – but your processes aren’t

The bigger you get, the more complicated finances can become. At the most fundamental level, the busier your business is, the harder it is to dedicate time to managing finances. Yet a growing number of employees, agencies, vendors, clients, and other components of managing your books can make the process of getting your accounts in order exponentially more difficult. This is especially true if you’re using manual processes, or if your financial technology isn’t particularly scalable.

So, if your bookkeeper alone can’t handle it, a virtual CFO probably can. Again, as experienced accountants, they can often provide much-needed advice on investing in a technology setup that can support growth – helping you navigate periods of substantial expansion with systems that can bear the weight of your new requirements.

You’re spending, but you don’t know how you’re spending

It’s depressingly simple for expenses to spiral out of control: when employees claim more than they should, it adversely affects your finances; when they claim less than they should, it affects their morale and financial wellbeing.

 This can only be avoided with clear policies around expense management and spending, and that, in turn, requires scrutiny, control, and visibility into incomings and outgoings. Your team should feel empowered to spend when they need to – but with the right limits in place to ensure that they’re doing so within the company’s means.

This spending can sometimes spiral out of control to the point where businesses can struggle to maintain profitability without quite knowing why. If you can’t empower your employees to spend, you can actually stifle growth: when budgets are throttled, staff can’t buy what they need to maximise revenue-generating activities.

A virtual CFO can help solve these problems: advising on measures and technologies to put in place to prevent these issues – as well as creating best practices for how to spend which funds properly.

You might not be ready for a permanent CFO just yet: a small business will struggle to justify the expense. But don’t ever think you’re too small to manage your finances properly.

Although the UK can be an expensive place to travel, there are many ways you can reduce costs and save money on your road trip. If you want to avoid overspending, consider all the expenses, set up a budget and get yourselves clued up beforehand with our top tips for saving.

1. Create a budget

Total the number of days and miles of your trip and then create your budget for fuel, vehicle costings, food, drinks and sightseeing.

If your budget is tight, you need to prioritise. Figure out what’s more important for you: the best food or staying in a nice hotel? Maybe you want to visit numerous attractions and don’t care if you’re camping and cooking out of the back of your car for a week. Do what works best for you.

Share out your money accordingly, applying the bulk of it towards those prioritised activities. This way you won’t overspend or have to limit yourself from doing things you want to.

2. Automatically transfer to savings

If you’re serious about your efforts to fund your travels, once you’ve worked out how much you can realistically save, set up a standing order to automatically transfer certain amounts of money to your savings every month or two weeks. Try to avoid using this money in the run up to your road trip.

3. Your car

Having your own car is a huge advantage when it comes to road trips because this enables you to reach idyllic spots that are impossible to get to via public transport.

If you’re a young driver or have recently passed your test, you're probably now on the hunt for a car. There are many options for you online, from eBay to Auto trader as well as local car garages close to home. But don’t panic if you’re worried about affording your trip and car insurance at once. Insurance with a black box could help you save a lot of money. Black box insurance works when your car is fitted with a black box device which records speed and the time of day or night that you are on the road. The device will also assess your driving style by monitoring braking and accelerating to build up a comprehensive profile of you as a driver. This could stop you facing an eye-watering insurance quote and allow you to put more money towards your road trip.

4. Track your spending

Money doesn’t have to be stressful and neither does effective money management. The stress begins when you’re too afraid to check your balance and have lost track of what your money is doing.

Tracking your expenses is important and is vital towards helping you save for your trip. Put aside a day on the weekend and go through your accounts, find out what your finances look like and see what you can cut back on each month. Write down everything from how much you spend on food a week, to entertainment and so on.

Money doesn’t have to be stressful and neither does effective money management. The stress begins when you’re too afraid to check your balance and have lost track of what your money is doing.

5. Set up shop

Do you have a house full of stuff you don’t use? Clothes you’ve never worn, old CDs and DVDs? Sell them. You’ll be surprised at how nice a declutter too. Even if you don’t make a fortune from what you sell, you will still be able to add some extra money to your road trip fund.

We hope you manage to get your trip together! For now, enjoy the holidays and have a Merry Christmas.

At some point, most companies will need to borrow money, whether it’s to fund the growth of the business, to manage cash flow or to purchase new equipment. There are plenty of business loan lenders in the market, but it’s important that you take your time to find the right product for your business. Below, Gary Hemming, expert at ABC Finance, outlines for Finance Monthly the basic considerations to make when looking into getting a business loan.

Finding the Right Type of Business Loan

The first step in securing funding is to take time to understand the different types of business loan products. The easiest way to do this is by speaking to an experienced business finance expert, ideally a whole of market, fee-free broker.

The different products available tend to have very different costs, both in terms of monthly repayments and the total charge for credit.

Calculate Your Budget Upfront – and Stick to it

Most lenders use computerised risk profiling systems to calculate the interest rate of each loan. This means that the rate charged can end up much higher than the lenders advertised ‘headline rate’.

As the expected costs can gradually creep up as the lender sees things that they feel increase their risk, setting a budget is key. A number of small steps up in the proposed monthly repayments can lead to you taking on a payment that is really stretching the limits of being affordable.

You can protect yourself against this by setting a maximum repayment upfront and sticking to it. Be prepared to walk away if the risk of taking out the loan outweighs the benefits.

Make Sure You Have the Documents Needed to Apply

Although each lender has their own requirements, there are some common documents that are almost always needed. These are your business bank statements and trading accounts.

Lenders will usually need 3 months business bank statements. These can either be scanned and certified by a suitable professional, or PDF copies downloaded via online banking.

2 years accounts are requested by most lenders, with PDF or scanned versions usually accepted. If your business does not have 2 years accounts, the lender will usually want as much evidence of trading performance as possible.

Management accounts will strengthen your application where accounts are either unavailable or if the latest accounts are more than 9 months old.

Be Clear on How Long You Need the Money for

There are a number of unsecured business finance products available and they all work in slightly different ways. It’s important that you’re clear upfront why you need the money and for how long.

If a cash injection is needed into the business and there is no large event upcoming that will be used to repay in full then a business loan is a strong option.

Where funds are being used to specifically fund a large one-off order, or contract, then there may be better options available, such a trade finance.

Equally, if you’re looking for a facility that can be used longer term and that will grow with your business, a business loan may prove too inflexible. In that case, revolving credit facilities and invoice finance may well be better suited to your needs.

An experienced broker will be able to advise you on some of the most suitable finance products for your needs within a few minutes of your initial chat.

Once You’re Completely Comfortable - Apply

Once you’re completely comfortable, and only then, apply for your business loan. If you apply with multiple lenders, you will be credit searched by each one on application.

Although it can seem like a smart move as you will get quotes from more than one lender, too many credit searches can actually reduce your credit score. To prevent this from happening, it’s important that you take a more measured approach.

You can do this by understanding the lender's criteria and interest rate bands – the rates charged depending on the risk presented to them – upfront.

Once you’ve found what seems like the most suitable, and likely cheapest option, apply with them first, while your credit score is at its strongest.

A simple increase of 1% on income tax and National Insurance could pay for the 3.4% increase to the NHS budget announced by the Government says leading accounting, tax and advisory practice Blick Rothenberg.

Robert Pullen a Director at the firm said: “The debate has been raging over the weekend about how the increase to the budget could be paid for. There was alarm recently when a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Health Foundation said that the NHS would need an extra 4% a year - or £2,000 per UK household - for the next 15 years and that the only realistic way this could be paid for is by tax rises of 3% on VAT, income tax and National Insurance contributions.”

Pullen said: “If a 3% tax increase is implemented, this would undoubtedly cause further issues within the Government, but a more manageable increase of just 1% to income tax rates could give the additional funding required."

He added: “We have calculated the impact of a 3% increase for an employed worker who is not at retirement age. It would mean extra tax of £892 for someone on £25,000 (3.5% effective tax rate) up to £11,747 for someone on £200,000 (5.9% effective tax rate).”

It is potentially worse as the tax brackets increase, Robert said: “For the £25k earner, that equates to £17 per week or £74 per month and for the £200k earner £226 and £979 respectively.”

He continued: “The NHS budget in 2016/17 was around £122bn, and so a 3.4% funding increase, as proposed, would broadly be equivalent to an extra £4.2bn per year.”

He added: “We calculated, using HMRC statistics, that if income tax rates were increased by 1% then in the tax year 2016/17 an extra £4.2bn would have been generated."

“This means that a 1% increase for an employed worker who is not at retirement age would mean extra tax of £297.00 for someone on £25,000 (1.19% effective tax rate) up to £3,196.00 for someone on £200,000 (1.96% effective tax rate).”

He added: “This would go some way to filling the hole in the finances without relying on the ‘Brexit dividend’ crystallising but if the dividend does come to fruition the one percent could be even less."

For spontaneous spenders, the word “budgeting” can cause alarm bells, with the thought of having money left over at the end of the month seeming unattainable. People often think budgeting means having to cut back on the things that they enjoy. Being money smart doesn’t have to mean you miss out.

It was recently reported that in their lifetime, a British person will spend on average £144,000 on impulse shopping. This can include anything from the chocolate bar that you grab as you get to the till and other small purchases which soon add up, to regularly splashing out on new clothes.

There’s nothing wrong with treating yourself every once in a while, who doesn’t deserve a little retail therapy. However, if this is happening a little too often and you’re in need of looking after the pounds, there are a number of changes you can make.

The experts at PIWoP, a price drop alert tool, know how important the value is of every pound that you save. They offer five ways that people can create healthier spending habits and become money savvy.

1. Are you more attracted to the sale or the item?
   

   It can be tempting to pick up a product because the discount on it seems too good to miss, sometimes this appeals to consumers even more than the item itself. If this is the case, think about if you really need it, if it’s the money off label that’s caught your attention rather than the actual product, leave it on the shelf and save yourself money. That way, when you see something that you really want, even if it’s at full price, you’re more likely to have the extra money available to buy it.

2. Budget and prioritise
   

   Some expenses come out every month, write down what these are and then work out what you have left over. Then factor in things which are bound to occur, such as meeting friends for dinner or needing new school shoes for the kids. Prioritise these additional outgoings, certain things will need budgeting for, a weekly takeaway pizza is unfortunately not one of them! Cutting out spending that isn’t a priority could leave you with considerably more money at the end of the month.

3. Why are you spending?

   Treating yourself to a new outfit so you feel confident at an upcoming event or rewarding yourself after a lot of hard work is of course okay. However, if this happens on a regular basis and your bank account is suffering for it, it might be time to change your spending habits. Consider why you are spending and how productive it is. For example, if you spend when you are stressed or bored, there are other ways to blow off some steam that are considerably cheaper. Spending is often used as a short-term fix to feeling better, as soon as you remind yourself of this, you’ll be less tempted to overspend.

4. Do you need the item now?
   

   Finding a product that you really like or can imagine yourself needing for your next holiday or when the house is redecorated can make it easy to buy it right away. However, think about if you really need the item right now. If you’re moving house next year, although those lamps or expensive armchair might get you feeling excited, it might be better to wait for any upcoming end of season sales. Technology is helping consumers to do this by taking price comparison services one step further, such as the PIWoP tool. It allows consumers who have the tool installed on their computer, tablet or phone and see an item they like, to use it to enter the price they want to pay for it and the tool then alerts them if that item does go to or more likely below their PIWoP (Price I Want to Pay). Even waiting until the next day can make you realise that you don’t really need it, or that your money could be better spent elsewhere.

5. Set goals
   

   If you’re a real foodie who enjoys going out to eat, creating healthier spending habits doesn’t mean you have to stop doing what you enjoy. Or you might be interested in fashion and are eager to keep up with what’s new this season. Set yourself goals such as only eating at a restaurant one or two times a month (or however much you can afford without overspending) or allow yourself a couple of treats a month when it comes to clothes. Saving money while still allowing yourself a few luxuries will feel much more satisfying than regularly spending and then feeling stressed a few weeks after.