Budgeting Strategies: How to Save Your Company Money in 2021

Another year has come and gone, and just like that, we’re in another decade. Now, the New Year is commonly known as a time for new beginnings, fresh goals, and the opportunity to better yourself through more exercise, reading more books, or just genuinely putting into place good habits to help you improve your life.

But this New Year carries a different weight to it, seeing as how it’s an entirely new decade (#NewDecadeNewMe). While a new year is synonymous with personal growth, businesses also use this time to reflect on their past year and their successes. But, it’s also a time to look back on the last year and look for areas of improvement—particularly in your budgeting strategies.

For those who are in charge of a business’s budget, you know just how tough it can be to decide what to cut, what to add, and what to keep. You want to make sure that your company is profitable, but you don’t want to cut expenses that improve the day-to-day lives of your employees and their ability to do great work.

No need to worry, we have a list of some great budgeting strategies that will help save your company’s money without having to cut any of the necessities. It’s safe to say that by the end of reading this blog, your vision for your company’s budget will be ‘20/20’ (Booooo!).

Budgeting Strategies For Saving Money

Review, Reduce, Recycle

When it comes to cleaning up your budget for 2021, the most critical step is actually to take a step back. As the old adage goes, sometimes you need to take a step back to move forward. For budgeting, this absolutely rings true.

In order to come up with a new and improved plan of action for your company’s spending, it’s essential to identify areas in the past that can be cut going forward. So, during the initial review process of your budget, look for spending that can be reduced. For example, if you noticed that your company had purchased a lot of office supplies that went unused, then you should avoid restocking on paper, notebooks, and staples until those in reserves are used.

After identifying the key spending areas that can be cut for the new year, go back and look at your expenses and identify those that are necessary to the success of your business—in other words, this is spending that you’ll be recycling for the new budget. Perhaps you have a subscription to a software company for a project management tool that increased productivity dramatically. It would then be wise to re-up your subscription.

If, on the other hand, you had a tool that you paid for, but no one in your office used, then it would be a good idea to cut that expenditure going forward.

So, to recap, the initial budgeting strategy should involve first reviewing your expenses and budget from last year, identifying which expenditures you should get rid of, and which expenses you’ll continue to incorporate into your budget for the new year.

Seek Better Options For Employee Healthcare

You may have just read the above strategy and scoffed. It may seem like an impossible task to take on with the high cost of healthcare here in the U.S., but there are opportunities available that will allow you to lower your healthcare costs while still keeping your employees safe and healthy.

One area specifically to look for improvement is with employee diabetes care. Recent studies have shown that 1 out of every 10 American adults over the age of 20 have diabetes. That means if you’re a company of 5,000 people, upwards of 500 of your employees may have diabetes. That’s a large portion of your workforce, and you must work towards creating a workplace environment where they can thrive and succeed.

By offering your employees with diabetes a diabetes management solution, you’ll help them keep track of their blood glucose levels and ensure that they are healthy at all times. In addition, you can also drastically cut down on healthcare expenses by helping keep them out of unscheduled visits to the doctor or hospital.

With Pops Diabetes Care, you can do just that.

At Pops, we created a simple yet thorough diabetes care management system (Rebel), that when combined with our virtual care assistant (Mina), will allow your employees to maintain their health and focus on their work while being stress-free.

By investing in Rebel+Mina and incorporating our solution into your budget, you can save money on your healthcare expenses. Just how much, though? Well, for a company of 1,000 people, they can expect to save upwards of nearly $400,000. On the opposite side of that spectrum, a business of 10,000 people can see almost $4,000,000 in savings! That’s a lot of money that you can use elsewhere in your budget, as well as put back into your business to help it grow.

To learn more about how Pops can help your business save money while keeping your employees with diabetes healthy, reach out to us today!

A Budget For Every Occasion

For smaller businesses, creating one budget may be enough—especially for startups that need to be conscious of their spending and don’t have a lot of wiggle room. But, for more prominent companies, creating multiple budgets is a great way to give yourself options and to compare and contrast the benefits of different styles of budgets.

One way to do this is to create a liberal budget, a moderate budget, and a more conservative budget. After creating them, you can evaluate each of them and decide which is the best for your business in its current position. If you’re keen on saving money, then the conservative budget is a good idea. If you’re in a situation where spending a little more can lead to more profits (such as an upgrade in software or a new office), then that may be the right call.

Another way to utilize different budgets is by creating contingency budgets that you can turn to if something were to happen during the year that would warrant different spending and saving strategy.

For example, let’s say your company makes some investments, and they work out smashingly, bringing forth more growth and revenue. This may alter your budget for the rest of the year. So, if those investments do pay off, it’s a good idea to have a budget on standby.

On the opposite spectrum, let’s say those investments don’t pay off particularly well. Then, you’re going to want a plan (budget) that will tell you how to spend your money.

Slash Like an 80s Horror Movie

Slasher flicks are no longer that popular, although the continuous “Halloween” reboots are keeping the genre just barely alive. Like Jason slashes unsuspecting victims in those movies, you can aggressively slash most of your expenses that you believe you can get away with cutting.

In other words, this approach involves creating a bare-bones budget, where only essential spending is left (i.e., payroll, office rent, etc.). Bare-bones budgeting is perhaps the most effective way to save money, but it should only be used during times when your business is struggling. This budgeting strategy will get you through the rough times, but it isn’t a long-term solution. Ideally, after implementing this budget for a while, you’ll be able to increase your profit to the point where you can start investing in new ways to grow your business.

Good Luck and Happy Budgeting!

Whether you love budgeting or hate it, it’s an essential part of every business’s success. The important part of budgeting is to ensure that you take the time necessary to understand your company’s vision, goals, and where you currently stand in terms of profitability. All these factors will heavily influence how your budget ends up looking.

So, good luck and happy budgeting for 2021 and beyond!