How to Start a Consulting Business
10 step complete guide for starting a consulting business from scratch.
The basics are pretty simple: you need to pay vendors, bill customers, make deposits, and pay your taxes. Beyond that it starts to get complex, pretty quickly.
The best way for small business owners and startup entrepreneurs to deal with that complexity is through careful planning, detailed documentation, and careful organization. The worst thing a business owner can do is to let those bills and invoices, pile up which can not only make things crazy difficult when tax time comes around, but can also serve to kill your cash flow and, ultimately, your ability to stay on business.
Accounting helps you plan for growth. If you don’t understand your financial information, you won’ know how to set proper goals.
Accounting will also help you to secure a business loan. Every lender, including every bank, will ask for up-to-date financial statements and statements dating back at least three years. And you’ll need to provide at least a one-year cash flow projection. You won’t be able to deliver any of these unless you have an accounting system in place.
Business accounting is how your business records, organizes, interprets, and presents its financial information. Accountants analyze the financial condition of a business to help the business owner make better decisions.
Bookkeeping is the recording, organization, storage, and retrieval of financial information related to your business.
Accounting and bookkeeping do overlap in many ways. The main difference between the two is that bookkeeping is how you record and categorize financial information, whereas accounting puts the information to use through analysis, strategy, and tax planning.
A great bookkeeper is not the same as an accountant. Many businesses owners hire a bookkeeper with some simple goals in mind: keep me organized, get my bills paid, and get me prepared for the work that will be handed to the accountant.
Typically, bookkeepers are less expensive than CPAs (certified public accountants) and can be trusted to record and organize your day-to-day business transactions, keep your bank accounts balanced, produce simple reports, and assist with keeping your financial records in order.
Many small businesses will use an outside bookkeeper, paid hourly, who is in the office on a regular basis to handle all entries, pay all the bills, and manage invoicing and receivables. Having help with this aspect of managing a small company can be indispensable, and the time it can free for a busy owner, invaluable.
Any business from the smallest of hot dog stands to the largest of public companies creates data. Sales data, inventory data, employee data, customer data. The list is endless. And like any kind of data, if data is not organized and accessible it is completely useless.
With accounting data, this is doubly-true and the speed at which a small business can fall behind can be breathtaking. Even a few weeks of unrecorded sales transactions, or a month of un-mailed invoices can quickly swamp a small business, destroy cash flow, and put it out of business faster than you can spell IRS.
A good bookkeeper can help you set up a filing system, keep bills organized and paid on time, be sure customer invoices go out promptly, and put systems in place that will force you to do these things in a disciplined and methodical way.
Financial statements are written reports that summarize how your business is doing financially.
There are three main types of financial statements: the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement. Together, these three types of financial statements tell you where your business’s money is and how it got there.
Accounting software can easily generate these financial statements, and you can ask a bookkeeper to do it for you if they’re maintaining the books for your company.
Do not under-estimate the importance of a periodic review of your bookkeeping, accounting and tax strategies. It is at your own peril that you neglect to take a hard look at the systems you have in place and the people managing those systems.
Are you doing your accounting in the most productive and cost-effective way? Does your CPA have the right level of industry knowledge to advise? Does your tax-preparer have the skills and expertise to keep you (and your investors) on the right side of the law? And finally (the big one), can you fins ways to reduce your expenses while maintaining high-quality controls?
Take the time to reconsider your overall accounting strategy and find ways to strengthen and improve it.
A small business owner or manager needs to choose the right accounting software. This is often driven by your choice of accountant: if your CPA uses Quickbooks, it’s a reasonable bet that you will, too. But not all accountants use QB and there is no rule that says you need to use it.
In fact, the trend is away from installed accounting packages and towards cloud-based solutions for small business bookkeeping and accounting. So, while Quickbooks had myriad features and some very powerful tools and is, in many ways, the industry standard, some of the online options also provide robust tools and feature sets and offer the convenience and economy of cloud-based software. Two of the leaders in subscription-based small business accounting packages are Wave Accounting, Xero, and Freshbooks. These services offer accounting, invoicing, and project management tools as well as standard reporting and tax-preparation features.
Large companies have large accounting departments, and will often have a CFO (Chief Financial Officer), a controller (aka ‘comptroller’), accountants, and bookkeepers on staff to handle the flow of financial data and oversee the quality of reporting.
Often, these companies will engage an outside tax accountant who specializes in the arcane details of the IRS as well as state departments of revenue or taxation.
Small businesses are more likely to hire an outside accountant who is versed in managing books, creating reporting systems, and preparing corporate taxes. Smaller accounting firms tend to be populated with these jack-of-all-trades type accountants and will meet the needs of most small businesses.
High-growth startups and mid-size companies will also often outsource accounting, but will usually have at least two accountants on the team, a generalist as well as a tax specialist.
A good accountant will not just keep your books in order and your business on the right side of the tax code, but can and should also act as a trusted advisor, someone who can answer your questions, assist with your business strategy, and help you grow and develop your company over time.
Where to find this person? Ask business associates, friends, or even your attorney. Referrals are the best way to find the right match and to enter the relationship with some certainty and a reasonable level of trust.
10 step complete guide for starting a consulting business from scratch.
A complete, 11 step guide on how to start a real estate business.
A complete 6 step guide to starting a cleaning business.
6 step comprehensive guide for starting a successful clothing brand or clothing line.
A complete, 9 step guide on how to start a brewery business.
The ultimate 9 step guide on how to start a medical cannabis dispensary business.
The ultimate 9 step guide on how to open an Etsy shop.
A complete, 10 step guide on how to start a photography business.
What you need to know if you want to stake your business claim in the Lone Star State.
A step-by-step guide to take your business online.
Choose from 30+ categories, complete a project brief, and pick a package that fits your budget.
Collaborate with dozens of creatives, give feedback and score, and get revised custom designs.
Work with the winner to finalize your favorite design and get print/web-ready files and full IP rights.
Not into crowds?
Pick a creative and work 1-to-1
Crowdspring is an online design platform linking businesses like yours with over 220,000 design and naming experts. Instead of investing over $10,000 with a branding agency - or paying an unknown freelancer for a single design you hope you like - crowdspring delivers dozens of custom designs to choose from for every project. With over 12 years of experience, we’re the reliable, affordable solution for small business.
Here’s everything you need to know about the important principles and theories that can supercharge your marketing and influence people to buy your products or services.
There are many ways to start a new business with no money. The most effective, for many people, is to bootstrap their new startup until they can transition to working on the new business full time.
You can assess what you can do for free, build up some savings, ask friends and family for a loan or investment, apply for a small business loan, look for small business grants or other funding opportunities, and find potential angel investors.
Here’s a video with 5 tips on how you can bootstrap your new business, even if you don’t have money to start it right away.
The difference between a business owner succeeding or failing is the foundation you build when you first start your business. That’s because you should prepare thoroughly before starting a business. And you should know how to adapt to changing situations – as often happens when you run your own business. Here's a complete guide on how to start your business and grow it into a sustainable and profitable business.
Most small businesses can be started and operated without a big team. Other than salaries, the biggest expense for many new businesses is the marketing budget. But there are ways you can stretch that budget. For example, here are 21 ways to market your small business on a shoestring budget.
According to the most recent analysis by Sageworks, accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping, and financial planning where the most profitable types of small businesses, returning an average profit margin of 18.4%. Real estate leasing, legal services, outpatient clinics, property managers, and appraisers, dental practices, offices of real estate agents and brokers, other health care practitioners, management, scientific and technical consulting services, and warehousing and storage rounded out the top 10 industries.
There is not a single path to entrepreneurship. Some start a company in high school, or even earlier. Others start something in college and sometimes drop out of college to pursue their dream. And others start in their 40s or 50s. Each person has a unique path. Here are some great ideas for beginners: home cleaning, blogging, photography, freelancing, child-care services, and running errands. Each entrepreneur, whether a beginner or an experienced business owner, starts with an idea and then executes that idea.
But, coming up with a viable, profitable business idea can be tough. Here’s a guide to brainstorming and evaluating business ideas.
There are many businesses that are relatively easy to start. These include event planning, gardening and lanscape services, painting, yoga or other exercise instruction, local tour guides, tutoring, and many others.
2020 was an unusual year. With the global pandemic, people have been forced to get creative when starting businesses. This will continue in 2021. Many look to start businesses that can be operated online. These include online courses and coaching, graphic design, web development, instagram influencer, affiliate marketing, and many others.
There are many businesses you can run from your own home. These include affiliate businesses, selling on Ebay or Etsy, baking, freelance writing, freelancer design, freelance coding, helping businesses as a social media influencer, and many more.
Three of the most common challenges managers and companies face when managing remote teams and ways you can overcome those challenges.
Learn why registering a DBA (Doing Business As) name could be the right decision for your business.
Here are 6 tips to turn your hobby into a successful business.
How to land and keep the first customers for your new startup or small business.
Turn your business into a strong brand so that you can grow your small business or startup faster.
Here’s what you need to know about content marketing for your small business
Here are 12 quick marketing tactics you can execute in one hour or less.
7 proven customer service tips to help you put smiles on your customers’ faces.
13 ways that you can better manage your customers’ expectations, create loyal brand followers, and grow your business faster than ever.
Neuroscience can help you to make better marketing decisions and can help you to improve your marketing strategy.
Reasons why you need to expand your online presence and actionable tips to help you do it.
Why your office may be hurting your company.
Our award-winning dedicated customer support team has a 99% satisfaction rating, and can help by phone, mail and chat.
We're happy only when you are.
Our support team is always ready to help you with a free, no obligation design consultation.