Published on: 08 December 2018
Last Updated on: 08 August 2019
Equity release allows you to borrow money now that you don’t need to pay back any time soon. When you die, it is the time when the equity release provider will take the money back. They will sell the property and deduct the loan from the property value when sold.
You don’t need to opt for regular loans when there is an option that lets you borrow money without the need to pay immediately. The only downside is you could end up losing the entire value of the property depending on the amount you borrow, the rate of interest, and your time of death.
It might look simple on the surface, but if you dive into the details, you will realise that things can be quite complicated. Therefore, you need help from equity release experts to explain to you all the issues that you don’t quite understand.
They have years of experience:
These consultants have been around for several years and worked with people who also wanted to get equity release. They have connections with various equity release companies, so they understand the terms and conditions they set. You can count on them to tell you what you need to know regarding equity release, including updates if there are changes in the policies. Even the legal terms that you find confusing will also be understandable after their explanation.
They can simplify things for you:
It is quite tricky understanding all the various concepts when they are all unfamiliar to you. It is even more complicated at your age since you are no longer as sharp as you used to be. With the help of these experts, they can simplify the concepts for you. They will show you some numbers, but they will also explain to you what they mean. After talking to them, you will feel enlightened regarding equity release and might even decide to go ahead with it.
They can explain to your children too:
Even if you already understand the equity release schemes, your children might worry that it is not the best choice for you. They might think that you are not getting a good deal out of equity release. You can let them speak with the consultants too, so they will know the details and not worry about what will happen next. After you die, your children will be the ones to deal with the equity release company. You want them to understand the details so that they know what to do, and they can stick with the terms agreed.
Apart from paying the equity release advisers, you have nothing else to pay at the time when you get equity release. The payment will come later once the property is up for sale. Some companies might even penalise you if you decide to repay before they sell the property.
As long as you stick with quality consultants who know the details of equity release, it will be fine. Find someone you can trust and who has a good reputation in the industry.
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One of the common reasons why small businesses fail is the lack of working capital. Poor financial decision-making can be detrimental to your small business.
This will not scare you or put you off the idea of starting your very first business. However, it is to convince you how important it is to draft a financial plan for your small business.
The importance of predicting your financial health is not just to maintain a steady cash flow but also...
Understand how lucrative your business is in the long run.
How long will your business be at break-even (no profit, no loss)?
When can your business start making a profit?
Most importantly, what is the contingency plan of any financial hurdle?
In this blog post below, we will be discussing the following:
Importance of a financial plan for your small business.
Elements of a financial plan for your small business.
A template to create a small business plan (for any business).
Importance Of A Financial Plan
Here is why you should begin creating your very first-ever financial plan for your small business.
1. A Business GPS?
Imagine yourself driving to a new destination without knowing where you are or in which direction you should proceed.
This is what it is like to open a business without having a financial plan.
A financial plan will give you a clear roadmap to your business journey, and determine how much to spend on each destination.
2. Where Is The Goal Post?
We all have a vague idea of what a startup goal should be. However, getting overwhelmed is common without a clear picture.
A financial plan will provide you with a clear goalpost. I am talking about tangible, measurable, and achievable goals.
Whether you want to expand your business, increase profits, or reduce costs, a financial plan gives you a clear path.
3. What Ifs & Risks!
It is given that your business won’t be smooth sailing forever!
Businesses often face unexpected expenses. It could be something as simple as equipment breakdowns or sudden major market changes!
As a business owner, being financially ready is a crucial step!
A financial plan can help you set aside emergency funds, so you're prepared for these surprises.
4. A Long-Lasting Impression
Want investors early on for your business? Then, it would help if you offered them a steady financial plan.
Remember, lenders and investors want to see a well-thought-out financial plan before they commit their money.
Therefore, having a solid plan shows them that you understand your business's financial health, its cash flow, and the potential profit opportunity. Hence, we are serious about making your business a success.
5. Improves Financial Decision-Making
With a financial plan, you better understand your cash flow, revenue, and expenses.
This knowledge helps you make informed decisions, like when to invest in new equipment or whether to cut costs.
Important Elements Of The Financial Plan Of A Small Business
Before you begin your financial planning, you should be aware of the different financial jargon for a business.
1. Cash Flow Projection
This includes predicting the market, what effect your product will have on the market, and how much you can earn from it.
Now, taking the potential amount you create capital expenditure for each month. The function of a cash flow projection is to ensure you have enough (at the end of the month) in terms of expansion.
It is common for a business to live month by month with no profit for the first six to eight months of the business. Essentially you are establishing your business.
However, if it crosses the one-year mark with just a break-evens, the following could be the reason:
Your business is not making money because of the lack of demand.
The expenditure is way over your income. You must start some cost-cutting methods.
There is a lack of marketing, and your small business is not reaching the target audience.
You do not have enough investment for the small business you are starting.
Keep these points in mind when starting your cash flow!
2. Balance Sheet
A balance sheet is a financial estimation of your small business’s current state. Here are some of the important items your balance sheet will have:
Income & Expenditure
Total owning & total owing (personal debts or small business loans).
Assets that are currently under collateral.
Upon reading it might sound simple. However, when it comes to a balanced business sheet, you will require a finance professional to craft one.
3. Personnel Expense
This brings us to the next point in any financial plan for a small business. The personnel expense, or the amount you are spending on hired personnel.
It doesn’t always have to be your employees. In fact, the number of employees for a small business will hardly reach 15 in the very first year.
A personnel expense includes individuals working as consultants for the business, and the different professionals you hire to help with the internal work (e.g. Finance officer to create the balance sheet).
Some of the common elements of a personnel expense are:
Cost is based on the positions each professional is holding.
Personal insurance plans for your workers (at least medical insurance).
Expenses are spared for other professionals working externally with the business.
4. Assets
The tangible assets that your small business owns:
Current Assets: What the business currently owns. These include inventories, machinery & tech devices, prepaid expenses (for example, digital tools), and other office supplies.
Tangible Assets: The one that physically exists under the name of your small business. Real estate (This will not include rented warehouses or offices. These will go under the expenditure section), land inventory, tangible investment (gold & bonds), and saleable merchandise.
Non-Tangible Assets: These are assets that are not in a physical form. Intellectual property, pre-paid tools, investments (stocks, Cryptocurrency, mutual funds).
Non-Operable Asset: Assets under your small business but from which you are not getting any income. For example, land you have an investment in but not yet open for any business-related functions.
Operable Asset: Assets that your business owns currently, and that are bringing some income. For example: produced goods, factory space, warehouses, and office space.
5. Products & Services
The products and services you are planning to offer will also come into the financial planning for small businesses.
These include the following:
The raw materials are required to create the goods.
Factory costing.
Warehouse costing.
Transport & Drop shipping costing.
Worker’s salary & insurance.
Contingency management funding. (In case of any accident or unpredictable situation).
The summation will give you the total cost of production. With which you can create and understand the market value of your product.
This step is very important to assess the profit and loss of each item.
6. Income Projections
Another crucial part of small business finance planning is prediction. This is how you can predict whether your income will have any substantial income.
Here is how you can protect your business income (before starting it):
Check business income projections of competitors through several data analyses.
Is your small business subject matter trending in the market? What is the current market share of such companies?
Are investors willing to invest in a business venture as such? In fact, check some of the Shark Tank successes, and analyze which business venture seems more profiting by investors themselves.
The inflation rate of the past decade regarding the product or service you are about to sell also matters.
7. Marketing
You cannot spend everything on logistics and not worry about marketing.
One cannot ignore this matter, especially in today’s day and age when small businesses are reaching new milestones by a simple influencer shoutout, or social media virality!
Here are some of the factors in which you will need to spend in marketing:
Social media marketing tools.
Influencer marketing.
Small ad-films over YouTube.
Website building and digital marketing (Website domain and SEO tools).
8. Risk Management
No business is protected from the risks that come to every business in its lifespan. However, the contingency plan is not getting ambushed by a sudden change.
Here are some of the financial risks/uncertainties your new business could face:
Market Risk: The ups and downs of the current & dynamic economy. In fact, after the pandemic, things have become a little less predictable.
Reputation Risk: Social media is indeed bringing customers and businesses closer. However, the downside of such connectivity is the risk of a tampered reputation, especially when audiences jump to conclusions upon hearing anything on the internet.
Competition Risk: This is a common risk every business faces. When your competitors launch something new & exciting, there could be a significant shift in sales numbers for you.
Environmental Risk: One good example of environmental risk that has previously impacted businesses majorly is the pandemic.
Political Risks: The political scenario of your country can have a considerable effect on your business, especially in terms of export-import & business expansion.
This is one of the reasons why having a financial contingency plan for managing sudden risk is one of the crucial components of a business financial plan.
Business Template For A Startup
As promised, we have a business template that will help you take that very first step for your startup.
Financial Plan For Startup (Template)
Table of Contents
1. Financial Overview: A Financial Overview will consist of a financial overview of your business’s current state. Also, please provide the key points and takeaways of the financial data that you will provide.
4. Assumptions – Market Research: This is the step for market research and predicting the business’s profit potential.
5. Break-Even Analysis: A table or graph which provides information on the number of units your business needs, and how much you need to sell to make a profit.
6. Financial Statements: This will include the following charts.
- Profit & Loss (Optional if you have a startup)
- Cash Flow Statement (How the monthly cash flow will look)
- Balance Sheet (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly Income & Expenditure)
Elements For Your Balance Sheet
The following is what your balance sheets should include based on items required: monthly, quarterly, and yearly income & expenditure.
Operational Financial Plan
Business Location and Facilities
Technology and Equipment
Key Operational Processes
Supply Chain and Inventory Management
Management and Organization Financial Plan
Organizational Structure
Key Management Team
Roles and Responsibilities
Hiring and Training Plan
Financial Plan
Start-up Costs (for new businesses like loans, downpayment; collateral, and personal investments)
Revenue Projections
Expense Projections
Cash Flow Statement
Profit and Loss Statement
Break-even Analysis
Funding Requirements and Strategy
Funding Needed
Purpose of Funds
Potential Funding Sources
Funding Timeline
Key Risks
Risk Mitigation Strategies
Financial Tools to Ease Your Job
In the modern age of technology, you can always lean on tools to automate some of the financial tasks.
So, if you need that digital assistance when
Begin Your Journey!
This is a sign for you to begin your journey as a first-time business owner. Yes, it is overwhelming, and yes it can be intimidating (hence the long procrastinating period!).
Creating a financial plan for even a startup can be intimidating. Here is how you can make this journey a little easier.
Start with defining your business first. The executive plan is a must. You should know what your business is all about.
Then, move through the basic income and expenditures.
Take help from professionals in tax advice and create a detailed balance sheet.
Finally, consider seeing your whole financial plan in a timely manner. It is important to take one step at a time.
Hopefully, we can give you enough answers about a business financial plan. How is your journey going? Please let us know in the comment section below.
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Debt consolidation is a financial strategy that merges several financial bills into one debt that gets paid off through a management program or loan.
Debt consolidation is useful when the debt is of high interest like the credit card. It needs to reduce your monthly repayments by lowering the rate of interest on all your bills, which makes it easy to pay the debt off.
The option of debt relief untangles the mess that consumers face each month when they are struggling to keep up with several bills from various card companies and different deadlines. In its place, there is a single payment to one source each month. It also saves money at the end of the day.
There exist two primary forms of debt consolidation – signing up for a debt management program or taking up a loan. It is up to you to decide on the method that fits your situation.
You can also call this credit consolidation or bill consolidation. Consolidating debt should help get you out of debt very fast and improve your credit score.
How does it work?
It works by lowering the rate of interest and reducing monthly payments to a price that is affordable on debts that are unsecured like credit cards.
The leading step towards debt consolidation plans is calculating the total money you pay for your cards monthly and common interests paid on the cards. It provides a baseline for purposes of comparison.
You will then have to look at the budget and add spending on basic utilities like transport, housing, and food.
How much money are you left with?
For many individuals, there is always enough left to handle the budget and help them pay their debts. However, motivation and effective budgeting are never evident when individuals fall behind on bills.
And this is where debt management programs or debt consolidation loans step in. All of them need one payment monthly and gives you time to track the progress of removing debt.
Will some calculations and research inform you if a debt management program or loan will be of more help in paying the debt?
Using a loan to do Debt Consolidation:
The standard method of doing debt consolidation involves getting a loan from the bank, online lenders, or credit unions. The loan has to be large enough to clear the unsecured debt at once.
The loan gets paid with monthly installments at the negotiated interest with the lender. The period of repayment is usually five years, but the amount of benefits charged is the crucial element.
The lender will take a close look at your credit score while determining the interest rate charged for the loan. In case you are falling behind with your debts, it is likely that the credit score will tumble.
In case the debt consolidation interest is not lower than the average benefits you are paying on credit cards, then the loan will not be doing you any good.
There are other alternatives to loans like personal loans or equity loans, but none of them will help if the rate you are paying is long and does not make sense.
Consolidating Debt without a Loan:
There is a possibility of combining debt and reduce installments without another loan. Agencies that do non-profit counseling provide debt consolidation via debt management programs that do not require you to take credit.
In that place, the non-profit agencies work with companies of cards to reduce interest rates and lower monthly repayments to a level that is affordable.
The consumer will send payments to the counseling agency that then distributes the funds to agreed creditors. The agency may tell the firm to waive over-the-limit and late fees.
This solution is not quick. Programs of debt management take up to five years to manage the debt. If you miss one payment, they may revoke the arranged concessions on the monthly fee and interest rates.
Read Also:
Eight Essential Tips For Getting Out Of Debt
Are Debt Consolidation Loans Recommended For Credit Card Consolidation
The traders invest money in making good profits in business. People hope for good returns to become rich in the Forex market.
But maximizing the probability of profits cannot be done within a short time. The investors apply different types of techniques for increasing the chance of making money.
By developing sound knowledge about the field, a person will be able to get good returns from the market. There are several types of techniques for maximizing profits. These are being discussed here.
Check the Broker
The traders must select the right broker to continue the transaction process. A trading platform is very important for the buying-selling process, and the broker provides this platform.
So, when a person chooses a platform, he or she needs to make sure that the trading platform works better and suits him or her properly.
The broker charges a fee for their services. The business should choose a broker who prefers a fixed spread. This will help the investor to reduce the costs. You should focus on the facilities provided by the broker.
Follow the Plan Properly
When an investor can control the risk, they will get good rewards. For this, people must execute the roadmap properly so they can stay on the right track to accomplish the goal.
A person must generate a proper plan and should be back testing this so that they can identify the plan's workability.
Considering the different phases of the Forex market, traders need to develop a plan and change some necessary things to adjust to the situation.
People should develop a sense of discipline that will help them apply the strategies accurately. However, those who are involved in bond trading must choose a high-end broker like Saxo. Usually, bond traders trade with a big sum of money. So, investing a big sum of money with an unregulated broker is a very risky approach.
Limit the Currency Pairs
Sometimes, people try to trade the different currency pairs to see which provides more profit.
But trading several types of pairs can force the investors to switch from one price pattern to another price pattern.
Therefore, the businessmen can miss the condemning period of the business field. So, to avoid the losses, a person tries to limit the pairs as one pair influences another pair.
Limit the Leverage
Investors should take leverage based on their account balance. Taking excessive leverage can create a problem for them. This can wipe out their account balance and can destroy the traders’ trading careers.
Many brokers offer moderate leverage, which helps maintain a balance between cost and assets. People take excessive leverage to make more trade and more profits. But the person needs to take the leverage that can control the risk and help to get good rewards.
Maintain the Risk-Reward Ratio
The risk-to-reward ratio refers to the proportion between the stop-loss order and the take-profit order.
To get good results, a person should use these orders accurately. If people cannot spend lots of time in front of the screen, they can secure their current position by setting the stop-loss.
An investor should identify how much loss he or she can tackle in place of making good profits. Some businessmen tend to take high risks; some tend to take low risks.
This depends on the income and the choice of the businessmen. So, you must decide your own preferences.
Every person wants to become rich in the Forex market to improve their daily lifestyle. But people must work hard to secure their deposit and increase the account money to do the trade for a long time.
Stick to your Trading Hours
Spending all day in front of the screen can lead to burnout and bad decision-making. Especially if you are new, and already on edge with insecurity regarding your decisions.
Instead, create your trading schedule based on your strategy and the currency pairs you are trading.
Usually, taking trades during peak market hours when there is more participation generates better opportunities.
And once that’s done, stick to it! Taking random trades at odd hours will mostly lead to impulsive decisions, costing you money.
Control Your Emotions
Even the best strategy won’t help you if emotions interfere. Fear and greed are known to be the biggest pitfalls for traders.
You should structure your trading by automating a part of it to avoid emotions. For example, you can use automatic stop-loss and take-profit orders so that you don't get taken into deciding under pressure in a volatile market.
Before you begin a trading session, assess your state of mind.
Are you feeling stressed or preoccupied?
Such emotions may impair your judgment. Regular intervals and mindfulness exercises will help you keep your trading instincts intact.
Final Note
Trading is a journey that can last you for a lifetime. Plus, act as a passive source of income when you are monterily in your roaring 20s.
It's not a very popular opinion, but calculated trading can also help you become more responsible with your income. It gives you a fair idea of where you shouldn’t spend your money, and what is the ‘right place’ to invest.
While the idea of ‘buying low and selling high’ might sound exciting, you should also be aware of the reality.
Profitable trading is more difficult than just buying stocks when the price goes down or selling when the price goes up.
A currency trader needs to have a big-picture understanding of the economies of the various countries and their interconnectedness. Especially how their business and inflation rate would affect the company you are currently interested in investing in.
Consistency is the name of the game. Test your strategy under different market conditions and tweak it if necessary. In time, you will be able to yield comfortable growth on your trading account.
Read Also:
Capex Trading Platform Review
How businesses can use stock trading
Forex Trading Wisdom: Talk Yourself Out of Bad Trades
