Posted by Maya Pillai

clothing-storeSmall businesses usually have a tough time controlling the rising cost as they are squashed between the limited financial resources and the compulsion to keep the prices at a reasonable level. Managing or controlling the cost of maintaining your business is known as cost management. Simply put it’s a way of running your business within a given budget and curbing unwanted expenditures to meet financial targets. The best way to control and manage the costs of your clothing business is to have strategy in place and to be proactive. If you find that your business expenses are skyrocketing, be proactive and take time to identify the areas where you can save and plug the expenses.

Identify Areas for Saving Cost:

  • The first and foremost thing that a small business owner has to do is to rope in an expert to study in detail the financial status of the business.
  • This will give an insight into the business financials and help to track where the money is being spend.
  • Have a detailed budget in place and stick to it. This will help to curb unwanted spending.
  • Keep a tab on the inventory to save money by keeping the stock at the required levels.
  • Keep track of the vendors to find out who would give you the most competitive price and provide good services.
  • Allocate costs according to the project’s profitability margin.

Here are a few tips to control cost of your cloth store

Have a strategy in place- You need to strategize your short-term as well as your long-term goals. Also consider implementing a reputed accounting software on the cloud that has the capabilities to forecast areas of expense. An advantage of implementing a cloud-based software is that as your business grows, the service provider will upgrade the version of the software that will give a competitive solution that is relevant to your business.
Get detailed insight into your finances- Implementing a finance application will give you a real time overview of your revenue and expenses. The real time financial reports will help to analyze the situation and make wise cost-saving financial decisions.
Have a budget in place- A detailed budget in place will help keep track the source of your revenue as well as your expenditure. An expense management software on cloud will help you allocate budget to your projects, estimate your expenses and generate report on how your business is performing. It will also give a lucid picture about the areas that need immediate attention.
Keep track of your inventory- As a small business owner you need to know about the services and items that you buy as well as sell. This will help to streamline the cash flow and reduce unnecessary expenses. An expense management system will help manage business costs as well as analyze the profits turnover. Inventory costs can be controlled if you have an insight into how many of items you have in stock and how quickly they are being sold out or used up. Inventory management help in cost control when there are fluctuations in the pricing.
Review your contracts from time to time- Its always better to review and renew your contracts annually, even if you end up using the same suppliers as well as vendors. This will prevent long time and regular vendors from hiking their rates and providing more services at the reasonable cost.

Integrating a finance management app into your business process will help you to take control of your cash flow, and expenses.

If you are a small business owner, please share your tips on cost control of your small business.