It’s always wise to include a contingency fund in your year’s budget because you just never know what’s just around the next bend in business. But, if those unforeseen circumstances don’t turn up, your efficiencies paid off this year, or you got the golden formula right and now you’re left with some leftover unspent cash in your commercial finance budget, then what are the best ways to spend it?
Sometimes there’s a temptation to waste money you weren’t expecting to have, in ways you might later regret.
From a commercial finance point of view, this is not the time to start rewarding yourselves with huge bonuses and going all out on products that you probably do not need, but rather, it is a time to become extra careful with the leftover funds so that you can plan for the future much better.
Here are a few things you can do with your leftover financial budget;
Re-allocate it to next year’s budget:
This is a great way to deal with leftover money. Allocate it to the next budget especially where you feel you may have under-budgeted. This helps you because you do not know how things are going to turn out in the next 12 months.
In cases where the budget gets too tight in the next year, you will have a little nest egg to deal with unexpected events.
Buy a much-needed appliance
This is another great way to invest your leftover funds. You may want to invest in a specific piece of machinery to make your work easier or more efficient, or to upgrade old and outdated or tired equipment. Anything that allows you to offer a better service or product is a good use of spare money.
Use the funds to deal with unexpected emergencies
There is an argument that actually it’s advisable never to spend the money left over from last year’s budget, because you never know when you may need it later on. Most companies end up experiencing unforeseen events at some point during a financial year such as downturns in the market, price rises from suppliers, accidents or equipment that falls and needs replacing.
Keep the money in your emergency fund to deal with such events as and when they occur, rather than having to look for more money to deal with what could have happened.
Re-invest it in the business as added capital
Smart companies actually do this a lot. If they have money left over from the previous budget, they use this as capital to expand their businesses. You can buy more stock, and enlarge your customer base by increasing your advertisements in order to expand.
This money goes into your income statements as added capital to increase your assets.
Invest in consultants
A wise company that wants to succeed is always looking for ways to improve their service or product and a great way to do this is to bring consultants into the business to show you how to upskill or better manage your business in some way. You should engage with consultants who understand the business better than you, so they can advise you on how best to achieve your goals.
The extra money that you had not planned on can be used for this purpose. Look for marketing consultants or commercial business consultants to give you advice on how to move your business to the next level and build your customer base.
Carry out staff training
This is extremely important. As a business organisation, you can decide to spend the leftover money in training your staff and making them more skilled in what they do. This is a worthy venture that will be beneficial to the company in the long run.
Take time and investigate the areas that your staff require training in, so that they are able to deliver what is required and in the end enable your company to achieve your goals.
Conclusion
There is a great temptation with leftover money to use it on something frivolous to celebrate having done well but you may very well end up regretting that decision if further down the line, you need to make a big investment in something vitally important for your business and you do not have the capital. So invest it wisely in something that will benefit the business, and help it to grow. Invest in training or new equipment. Or, do not spend it at all and leave it in the contingency fund for a rainy day because you never know when it will come in handy.
