Business Financial Planning in Greenville, NC
A budget for the year, a forecast for the cash, and the tax payments planned into both instead of arriving as interruptions.
- More than 30 years of experience
- Ramsey Trusted Tax Pro
- Greenville, NC
- Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm
What we do
This page is about planning the finances of a business. It is worth being direct about that at the top, because the phrase gets used for investment and wealth management as well, and that is not what this is. We do not advise on investments or securities. We plan the year a business is about to have.
That starts with a budget: what the business expects to bring in, what it expects to spend, built at a level of detail you will actually maintain. Then a cash flow forecast, which is the more useful half, because a business can be profitable on paper in a month when the account runs dry. The two together show where the year gets tight and how much warning you have.
The piece most budgets leave out is tax. Estimated payments and the year-end position are real calls on cash, and a plan that ignores them is a plan that breaks twice a year on schedule. We put them in from the start.
What financial planning includes
The full scope, in plain terms. Ask about any one of these on its own or all of them together.
An annual budget
Income and spending for the year ahead, at a level of detail you will keep up with rather than abandon.
A cash flow forecast
When money actually arrives and leaves, which is a different question from whether the year is profitable.
Tax payments planned in
Estimated payments and the year-end position included as real demands on cash rather than left as a surprise.
Planning around your busy and quiet months
For a business whose year has a shape, a plan that expects the shape instead of averaging it away.
Reviewing the plan against what happened
Budget against actual, so next year's plan is built on evidence rather than on last year's optimism.
Updating mid-year
When the year departs from the plan, the plan changes. One left untouched since January is a historical document.
How it works
We start from history, because a budget with no basis is a wish list. Twelve months of reconciled figures show what the business actually does, including the parts nobody would have guessed. If that history does not exist yet, we say what can be planned on what does exist rather than inventing the rest.
From there we build the budget and the cash forecast together, with you rather than at you, since you know what is coming that the figures cannot. Tax payments go in as scheduled demands. Then we look at the result: where it gets tight, how much notice you have, and what could be moved. Once the year is running, we compare plan to actual at whatever interval suits, and update rather than letting the plan drift out of date unnoticed.
Who financial planning for your business is for
- Owners who have never worked to a budget and want to start
- Businesses that have been profitable and still run short of cash
- Seasonal businesses that need the quiet months planned for
- Owners caught out by estimated tax payments more than once
- Businesses planning growth and wanting to know what it costs
- Churches and nonprofits that set an annual budget with a board
Profitable and short of cash at the same time
The two questions a business has to answer are whether it makes money and whether it has money, and they come apart more often than owners expect. A profitable month where a large customer pays late and a quarterly tax payment falls due is a month where the account runs dry despite everything going right.
That is why a budget on its own is not enough. A budget answers the first question. A cash flow forecast answers the second, by tracking when money actually arrives and leaves rather than when it was earned or incurred. A business that only plans on profit will eventually be surprised by a month it predicted correctly.
A plan you will not maintain is not a plan
Detailed budgets are satisfying to build and most of them are abandoned by spring. The detail is exactly the problem: a plan with fifty lines needs fifty lines maintained, and nobody with a business to run keeps that up past the first busy stretch.
We would rather build something at the level you will actually revisit, even if that means fewer categories than a textbook would suggest. A rough plan compared against reality every month beats a precise one abandoned in March, because the value was never in the forecast being right. It is in noticing early that it has stopped being right.
Financial Planning in Greenville and across eastern North Carolina
Our office is at 2120 E Fire Tower Rd, Suite 107 - 1074, Greenville, NC 27858, in Greenville, North Carolina, the Pitt County seat. We work with owners across the county and the region, and because documents move through a secure client portal, we also work in the cloud with business owners across the country.
Tell us where you operate and we will make sure financial planning for your business is handled correctly for your situation. See all our service areas.
What does business financial planning include?
Business financial planning at Elite Accounting Services in Greenville, North Carolina covers an annual budget built from reconciled history, a cash flow forecast showing when money actually arrives and leaves, tax payments planned in as scheduled demands on cash, planning around a business's busy and quiet months, and a review of budget against actual so the next plan is evidence-based. The plan is updated mid-year when the year departs from it. This is planning for the business and is not investment advice or wealth management. Run by Michael Hayes. Call (252) 916-3278 for a free quote.
Financial Planning FAQs
Does financial planning here mean investments?
No. This is planning for a business: budget, cash flow and the timing of what it has to pay. We do not advise on investments, securities or personal wealth management, and we will say so rather than let the phrase do the work.
How is this different from bookkeeping?
Bookkeeping records what happened. Planning sets out what is expected to happen and what has to be true for it to work. Planning needs bookkeeping underneath it, which is why the two usually start together.
When in the year should we build a plan?
Before the year starts, ideally, using the year that is closing as the evidence. Starting mid-year is still worth doing, and the plan then covers the months that are left rather than pretending to cover the ones that have gone.
Do we need clean books before you can do this?
Reliable figures, yes. A budget built on an unreconciled file inherits every error in it and then projects them forward with confidence. If there is cleanup to do, it comes first.
Is this useful for a church or a nonprofit?
Yes, and often more so, because a board usually approves an annual budget and then wants to see performance against it. That is exactly what this produces.
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Where to Next
Jump straight to any service or service area, or get a free quote. We work with growing businesses, churches, nonprofits, and individuals in Greenville, NC and across eastern North Carolina.
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Ready to hand off financial planning for your business?
Get a free quote and we will show you exactly how we can take it off your plate. You run your business. We will handle the rest.