Budgeting, like dieting, is a challenge — it requires both emotional commitment and self-restraint. But to run a successful business, you need to plan, forecast and manage a budget. 📝
Luckily, these days, you don’t have to do it by yourself — there are plenty of business budgeting software tools 🛠 available to save you time and administrative work. Here at Relay 🏦 , we help small businesses manage their finances through better banking. And after seeing all the issues that can arise with small business budgeting first-hand, we decided to put together this guide. Here's what you'll find in the guide:
THE BEST BUDGETING SOFTWARE FOR SMALL BUSINESSES:
Here are the 18 most popular budgeting platforms specifically for small businesses today:
BUDGETING SOFTWARE CATEGORIES
If you're just looking for the best solution for a specific use case, you jump straight to each category from here:
First things first, before we dive into our recommendations for the best business budgeting software, we need to understand what it is. 👇
What is business budgeting software?
Business budgeting software are tools that help businesses to plan, forecast and manage their finances. Budgeting tools range from simple spreadsheets and dashboards to highly sophisticated planning tools that auto-generate financial statements (for example, profit and loss statements, balance sheets and cash flow reports).
Whether your budgeting tool is jam-packed with features or just the basics, its most important job is to actually help you save time ⏰ and stick to your business budget.
And here’s what you can expect when you implement a proper budgeting tool in your business. 👇
Benefits of budgeting software
Businesses create budgets to eliminate wasteful spending and save money. An effective business budgeting software will help you:
Plan and forecast budgets throughout your business
Integrate your planning and budgeting with reporting dashboards
Manage cash flow and operations
Improve transparency and collaboration of financial planning with your team
Inform business strategy and decision-making with financial data
Stay on track of financial goals
According to data from a report by Clutch, 50% of small businesses did not create an official budget in 2020, which suggests that some business owners see budgets as unnecessary or cumbersome. 😓 But one way to make budgeting easier is by using business budgeting software to help ease your workflow.
Best business budgeting software & tools
We’ve organized this guide into six different categories based on use-cases to compare and contrast all the budgeting tools available.
Let’s dive in! 👇
🏦 Best business budgeting integrated into banking
First up, we have some banking solutions with budgeting features. Not all banking platforms are built with budgeting in mind, but when they are, you get greater clarity into your cashflow and finances. 🔍
Relay
Relay is the best solution for actually sticking to your budget once you've figured out what you want it to be. You’ll first want to use one of the other tools on our list to actually create your business budget — and then you can carry out your plan inside Relay.
It’s also the best bank for envelope budgeting, with up to 20 free, no-fee checking accounts to help you compartmentalize your cash into multiple categories. This budgeting method gives you clarity into your spending, helps identify when you’re overspending, and keeps you accountable to the budget you’ve set.
Pros
Compartmentalize your money with up to 20 free, no-fee checking accounts, each with its own unique account and routing numbers
See how much money you have remaining in each expense category at a glance
Automate payments by scheduling transactions between accounts via internal transfers, ACH payments or wires
Track employee or departmental spending with up to 50 virtual or physical debit Mastercards
Direct bank feed integration with your accounting software, QuickBooks Online and Xero
Cons
No built-in reporting dashboards
You’ll still need another budgeting software to create your budget
Pricing
Relay Standard: Free
Relay Pro: $30 per business per month
Webinar: How to manage cash with Relay
Learn how to stay on top of cash flow in your business with Relay in our live walkthrough and Q&A.
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Spendesk
Spendesk may seem like a bank, but they’re actually a spend management software that partners with an FDIC-insured state bank to deliver debit and credit card services.
Spendesk offers seven built-in solutions: company cards, employee expense management, invoice management, spend control and reporting, accounting automation and budget planning.
Pros
Unlimited company cards with built in spending controls to track employee expenses
Automate payments and approvals for business expenses
Cons
Need to upgrade to Essentials for multi-step approval flows, expenses categories tracking and advanced control rules on cards
Need to upgrade to Scale plan for Spending dashboard reporting
Pricing
Available upon request, but there are three tiers: Starter, Essentials and Scale
💻 Best budgeting spreadsheet tools
Spreadsheets have been a staple in the finance industry way before business budgeting software came into existence. In fact, the first financial spreadsheet was created by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston back in 1979.
The simplicity and number of available free spreadsheets make them a popular choice for business owners. Here are some of our favorites.
Microsoft Excel
We can’t have a business budgeting software guide without talking about the gold standard of the financial industry — Microsoft Excel. It’s so popular that 59% of businesses reported using Excel as their primary budgeting tool in 2019. Though the number has declined since, it still remains essential to many businesses. And for good reason — it’s extremely flexible.
Pros
Highly customizable budgeting templates and charts
Large number of functions available for data analysis, planning and financial modeling
Integrates seamlessly with the rest of Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 suite of tools
Wide selection of budgeting templates available
Collaboration with team members through mobile, desktop and web
Cons
Steep learning curve
Easy to make mistakes in the spreadsheet or for formulas to break
Pricing
$159.99 for one device OR
$6.99/month for up to 6 users
