Budgets easier to create than ever

The simplest things are sometimes the hardest to get started on, especially when it comes to business planning. Budgets, for instance.

Determining where the money comes from and where it goes is a fundamental part of every business plan, not to mention daily operations. In days past, constructing a budget could be a daunting task for would-be business owners easily intimidated by having to redo the whole thing to account for a single change.

But that was before Quicken, Microsoft Money and similar programs designed to allow users to try out different amounts to the two sides of the balance sheet to find the optimal allocations. Now you don’t even have to own a calculator to explore your options for getting and spending.

In fact, you don’t even have to own a fancy software program to get started. The wonderful World Wide Web offers an array of calculators to help you build a budget for free. And various websites let you start wherever you are most comfortable.

If you’re the kind of person who never gets a receipt from the gas pump and are still not convinced that you really need to write all this stuff down, you might start with Money 101. Seriously. That’s the name of CNNMoney.com’s online tutorial on all things financial. How basic is it? Building a budget is Lesson 2, and budgets are described as a necessary evil for personal finances. Check it out at http://money.cnn.com/

magazines/moneymag/money101.

Business advice

For many who are finally set to start a business, one of their first stops is the local Small Business Development Center. Both the Larimer County and Greeley/Weld County SBDC offices also offer a complete array of online resources to help would-be entrepreneurs take the first steps toward building a business plan. Larimer County’s resource links are at www.sbdc-larimer.com/sbdc_links.html; Weld County’s reside at http://mcb.unco.

edu/Programs/sbdc/. But be warned: the Weld County site only works with PCs – not Macs – and requires Internet Explorer to function fully.

That might be why the staff at the Weld SBDC also recommends using the online tools found at Entrepreneur.com. While there is no simple “budget” calculator per se, you will find a cash flow calculator, as well as one for finding your break-even point and your startup costs, even some to help you determine the return on your investment in various aspects of your online business. Click on the Money tab on the lefthand side of the homepage, or go to www.entrepreneur.

com/calculators/index.html.

If you want to get a handle on what it will take to run a business through the first year of operation, stop by www.businessownersideacafe.com/financing/budget_calculator.html. Enter all your information, both one-time outlays and monthly expenses, in the spaces provided, hit the calculate button and see exactly how much you’ll need to finance under this first set of assumptions. If you want to play around with different amounts, print your first worksheet for comparison and add or subtract accordingly.

There’s also a personal finance side to the budget worksheet to help you get a handle on household expenses, but if you come up with a negative number there, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to find a bank willing to float you a loan right now. So, again, adjust as needed.

Everything you’d ever want to know

For the complete number nerd, or anyone who needs – or thinks he or she needs – to figure out anything from the cost of debt on various types of loans to how much you’ll owe when your adjustable rate mortgage adjusts, a trip to dinkytown.net could be in the near future. This collection of more than 350 financial calculators comes complete with dynamic graphs, customizable page layouts and commercial options that allow you to license any of the calculators for inclusion on your own website.

All the calculators, even the ones specially designed for Canada and Australia, work on both PC and Mac platforms in a variety of browsers. Dinkytown also thoughtfully includes a troubleshooting page that allows you to customize the look of your calculator – or just understand how to get the required Java plugin to make your budget figuring as painless as possible.

Once you come up with a budget, you’re on your own for how painful it might be to stick to it.

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