Budgeting is a very important activity in every business. Big companies have not only big revenues but also a budget covering everything from bathroom tissues to Christmas bonuses. When you are a small business, though, you can often find yourself in the situation of having to divide a limited amount of money into smaller and smaller slices to cover everything. The internet is filled with money saving tips for individuals – now let’s see a handful of handy ways to save your money as a small business.

If you haven’t done so already, go paperless

Today most people have miniature computers in their pockets. We use them for everything from checking our emails to playing our favorite games at the Royal Vegas Casino (strictly outside business hours, of course). We use them for secure payments, too – people make deposits to the Royal Vegas each day using their smartphones, proving that both the phones and the Royal Vegas are secure enough to handle money transfers between parties. Why do we still use printed invoices then?

Just think of how much paper you can save a month by switching to electronic invoices and correspondence. There are, of course, situations where an email can’t replace words on paper but it’s unlikely you’ll encounter such situations too often in a month.

Compare banks, go with the best

Banks are invaluable partners for businesses, yet their services cost money – and sometimes these costs are unnecessarily high. Competitors often have better rates, and you can use this to your advantage.

You can confront your bank with the competitors’ strong points, asking for a friendlier set of tariffs and rates. If they are not willing to compromise – this happens more often than you think – there’s always the option to move on to another one that has a cheaper set of services for you. The same strategy can be applied to mobile carriers, and other service providers, as long as you have a competitor to use as a leverage.

Use open-source

Unless you’re an Apple fan or one of the few people using Windows Phone, your smartphone uses open-source software (i.e. Android). Why wouldn’t your desktop computers and laptops be the same? Back in the day, when it was first introduced, Linux was scary – it wasn’t user-friendly at all. Today, in turn, Linux is available in a myriad of forms, and most distributions are just as user-friendly as Windows or Mac OS X.

There are open-source or even web-based alternatives available for most common programs, such as word processors, spreadsheets and such. And if you have to use a Windows-exclusive piece of software, you can always give it a try with Wine (a Windows compatibility layer for Linux, which basically lets you run Windows programs on Linux-powered machines).