Courtney is behind Ideaspired. You can read her blog and tips here: Ideaspired

If your business is in debt, you’re not alone, since 70% of small businesses have debt, according to Federal Reserve Banks. Overwhelming business debt can add to the stress of being a business owner. Taking charge of your debt with smart budgeting and planning can help you improve your financial future.

Evaluate Your Debt

Having a clear understanding of your total business debt helps you create a plan to pay it off faster. Review your outstanding loans, credit cards, bills to vendors, and other debts to get a total. Prioritize the debt and make a plan to pay it off as quickly as possible.

Create a Realistic Budget

Review your current business budget to see where your money is going. You’ll likely need to change certain areas to free up more money to pay debt or reduce your reliance on credit to pay for business expenses.

Cut Expenses

Paying off debt faster and reducing new debt can only happen if you cut your expenses and/or increase your revenue. Look for bigger cuts that give you a large amount quickly. Then, add several smaller cuts that can build up for more savings. Examine every expense to ensure it’s necessary and find places to cut. Ways to cut expenses include getting rid of unused company vehicles, moving to a smaller location, or improving your efficiency.

Boost Revenue

Bringing more money into your business while cutting your expenses gives you a bigger cushion of cash. Offer a special to boost sales, or focus on upselling current customers for larger individual sales. Try new marketing techniques to attract additional customers.

Collect on Debts

If your clients pay through invoices, collect payments faster. For example, if you normally give people 60 days to pay, you might change the payment terms to 30 days. This gets money coming into your business faster, so you can pay off debt and improve your financial situation. Tracking down late payments can also help.

Consolidate Business Debt

Consolidating your debt can make it easier to pay off. With a consolidation loan, you can pay off individual debts and make a single payment each month. An ideal consolidation situation gives you better terms or interest rates than the individual debts.

Negotiate Rates and Terms

An alternative is to negotiate the rates and terms of your current debts. If your lenders lower your interest rate, you can have smaller payments or pay the debt off faster. If you can’t keep up with your current payments, ask your creditors if they’ll extend the length of the loan or accept smaller payments.

Form an LLC

By forming an LLC, you can often lower your taxes, which can improve your financial situation. It also provides protection against personal liability. To form an LLC in Idaho, you need to choose a registered agent, file a certificate of organization, and create an operating agreement. If you don’t want to do the paperwork yourself, you can hire a formation service without the large fees a lawyer charges.

Improve Your Financial Health

By paying down your business debt, you set yourself up for a healthier financial future. If you need help getting an overview of your business, consider the options for startups from Five23.

The post Tackle Business Debt and Improve Your Financial Health first appeared on Five23.

Courtney is behind Gig Spark, a blog to help people enter the gig economy. Many call gigs the first step to entrepreneurship. You can read here blog and tips here: (http://www.gigspark.biz).

When you’re a sole proprietor and staff member of a new startup, the pressure can build up fast. Finding ways to relieve that pressure and manage your workload is the key to finding long-term success, but how can you do this without hiring full-time staffers? Well, you can start by using these tips to find freelance helpers and tech tools that can boost your business.

You Need to Be Aware of Background Check and Hiring Rules

So first things first, before you begin hiring anyone to help your company grow, you need to know how to do so without becoming entangled in potentially costly legal issues. Let’s begin with background checks, which are a common hiring tool used by entrepreneurs and businesses to ensure employees are trustworthy. During this screening process, you are required by the U.S. FCRA (The Fair Credit Reporting Act) to inform candidates that a background check will be conducted and that the results of that check can impact your decision to confirm their employment. That last part can be critical in some states, where you can only perform background checks after a job offer is made and therefore cannot use the results in your preliminary hiring processes.

You should also know that you can research seven years’ worth of history but you may not legally be able to flag candidates whose record includes arrests that did not result in a conviction. Knowing these complex rules can prevent costly lawsuits, but if you plan on hiring any employees, researching other employment laws (U.S.) can also help.

You Need to Know Where to Look for Quality Freelance Help

Every business needs a website to succeed and HTML code provides the foundation for those websites. Hiring a freelance HTML5 developer who knows the latest HTML iteration and has experience customizing business websites could be a good investment. HTML code allows developers to insert helpful features, like contact forms, data tables and social media links into your site without you ever having to deal with complicated code. With these features in place and coding added correctly, your new website will be more user-friendly and professional, which can help boost your profits and your ROI for any project costs involved.

Not interested in having a custom-built website for your new business? You can use freelance job boards to attract talent for other projects, including marketing consultants, content writers and even virtual assistants. Virtual assistants can be particularly valuable to entrepreneurs who are working alone, since these remote workers can assist with time-consuming tasks, such as managing your calendar, keeping tasks organized, and allowing you to focus on more important aspects of your business.

You Need to Research Tech Tools That Can Grow Your Business 

Working with freelance and remote contract workers is a great way to get the help you need without a lot of added administrative costs. If you are working with an extremely tight business budget though, you may not even have room to hire those freelance or contract employees. In this case, you may need to look for tech that can help solve some of the most pressing issues keeping you from reaching your full potential. For instance, productivity apps such as Trello and Asana can be a convenient and cost-effective method for keeping your projects and tasks organized, without hiring a virtual assistant. Most apps offer basic productivity free of costs, but you may be able to access more advanced paid features as your budget grows. To make the most of your time, using accounting software for your new venture can also help free up your energy for other projects. Finally, don’t forget to add value to your social media presence by using social media marketing tools to connect with customers and drive your success.

You don’t need a full-time staff to succeed as an entrepreneur. You just need the right help and tools to manage that success, so use the tips above to connect with freelancers, find helpful tech, and avoid legal issues so your new startup can really begin to thrive!

The post How to Get The Tech and Help You Need as a Solopreneur Without Any Hassle first appeared on Five23.