Reply to Classy & Small Business Budgeting

I always start the new year with a new budget. I use the prior year's actual numbers and increase my expense projections by 3% (the average inflation rate) and increase revenue projections by 10% (a modest growth goal).

If I was just starting a business or creating a budget for the first time, I would speak to my landlord, accountant and neighbors to get some baseline figures for my budgetary expenses. For my income, I would rely on my income projections from my business plan.

An expense that must always be included in every business plan and budget for that matter is the category of owner's compensation or owner distributions. Let's make an assumption, that I would like the business to pay me $60,000 for my services over the course of year. I would then put $5,000. per month in my budget ($60,000 / 12 months= $5,000).

Each month I would treat my compensation, like any other bill that needed to be paid and try to get as close as possible to the payment I promised myself. In the months I did not make my minimum payment to myself, I would record that as money the business owes to me. When the business increased its revenues, I would pay myself the back pay owed.

Many business owners do the opposite, they do not plan how much they want to make, instead they plan how much they want the business to gross and take whatever is leftover. That method is not owners compensation, that is profit. I believe, profit should be an additional distribution on top of owners compensation. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow so to speak that makes business ownership worthwhile.

As a business owner, you must make your compensation a priority. Afterall, you would not work for someone else for free, why are you working for your business for free?

Reply to Classy- I hope the information above gives you some insight on how to budget payments for yourself. The rest is up to you, commit to treat your compensation like any other expense, rent, electric, etc. If you can't afford to pay yourself, maybe you need to be more aggressive on cutting other costs or reducing payments on credit card or other debts to free up some cash.

If you have additional questions, feel free to post them.